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THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 
IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE 


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RECONSTRUCTKI )  LAKE-DWELLINGS 


THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 
IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE 


BY 

JOHN  M.  TYLER 

PROFESSOR   EMERITUS    OF    BIOLOGY,    AMHERST   COLLEGE 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNERS  SONS 


Published    March,     1921 


-n 


3To 
JOSEPH    DECHELETTE 

PATRIOT  AND  ARCHAEOLOGIST 

KILLED    IN    BATTLE    AT    VINGRE    (AISNE) 
OCTOBER    3,   1914 


^ 


220225 


PREFACE 

The  dawn  of  history  came  late  in  Northern 
Europe  and  the  morning  was  stormy.  We  see 
the  Roman  Empire  struggling  in  vain  to  hold 
back  successive  swarms  of  barbarians,  pouring 
from  a  dim,  misty,  mysterious  northland.  Cen- 
turies of  destruction  and  confusion  follow;  then 
gradually  states  and  institutions  emerge,  and 
finally  our  own  civilization,  which,  though  still 
crude  and  semibarbarous,  has  its  glories  as  well 
as  its  obvious  defects. 

The  growth,  development,  and  training  of 
these  remarkable  destroyers  and  rebuilders  was 
slowly  going  on  through  the  ages  of  prehistoric 
time.  Most  of  the  germs,  and  many  of  the  de- 
terminants, of  our  modern  institutions  and  civ- 
ilization can  be  recognized  in  the  habits,  cus- 
toms, and  life  of  the  Neolithic  period.  Hence 
the  importance  of  its  study  to  the  historian  and 
sociologist.  It  has  left  us  an  abundance  of  rec- 
ords, if  we  can  decipher  and  interpret  them.  It 
opens  with  savages  living  on  shell-heaps  along 
the  Baltic.    Later  we  find  the  stone  monuments 


viii  PREFACE 

of  the  dead  rising  in  France,  England,  Scan- 
dinavia, and  parts  of  Germany.  They  begin  as 
small  rude  shelters  and  end  as  temples,  like  that 
at  Stonehenge.  People  were  thinking  and  co- 
operating, and  there  must  have  been  no  mean 
social  organization. 

We  find  agriculture  highly  developed  in  the 
valleys  of  the  Danube  and  its  tributaries.  We 
see  villages  erected  on  piles  along  the  shores  of 
the  Swiss  lakes  —  probably  a  later  develop- 
ment. We  find  implements,  pottery,  and  bones 
of  animals;  charred  grains  of  wheat  and  barley 
and  loaves  of  bread ;  cloth  and  ornaments  —  al- 
most a  complete  inventory  of  the  food  and  fur- 
nishings of  the  people  of  this  period.  We 
should  call  them  highly  civilized,  had  they  been 
able  to  write  their  own  history.  What  was 
their  past  and  whence  had  they  come? 

Implements  and  pottery  tell  us  of  exchange 
of  patterns  and  ideas,  or  may  suggest  migra- 
tions of  peoples,  and  finally  map  out  long  trade- 
routes.  Some  day  the  study  of  the  pottery  will 
give  us  a  definite  chronology,  but  not  yet. 

We  can  reconstruct,  to  some  extent,  these 
phases  of  prehistoric  life.  Our  greatest  diffi- 
culties begin  when  we  attempt  to  combine  these 
separate  parts  in  one  pattern  or  picture,  to  trace 
their  chronological  succession  or  the  extent  of 


PREFACE  ix 

their  overlappings  and  their  mutual  influence 
and  relations  in  custom  and  thought.  Here, 
we  admit,  our  knowledge  is  still  very  vague  and 
inadequate.  Twenty  years  ago  the  problem 
seemed  insoluble;  perhaps  it  still  remains  so. 
But  during  that  time  explorations,  investiga- 
tions, and  study  have  given  us  many  most  im- 
portant facts  and  suggestions.  Some  inferences 
we  can  accept  with  a  fair  degree  of  confidence, 
others  have  varying  degrees  of  probability, 
sometimes  we  can  only  guess.  But  guesses  do 
no  harm,  if  acknowledged  and  recognized  as 
such. 

I  venture  to  hope  that  historian  and  sociolo- 
gist may  find  valuable  facts  and  suggestions  in 
this  book.  But,  while  writing  it,  I  have  thought 
more  often  of  the  eager  young  student  who  may 
glance  over  its  pages,  feel  the  allurement  of  some 
topic  and  resolve  to  know  more  about  it.  The 
bibliography  is  prepared  especially  for  him.  It 
is  anything  but  complete.  The  literature  of  the 
period  is  almost  endless.  I  have  referred  to  only 
a  few  of  the  best  and  most  suggestive  works. 
They  will  introduce  him  to  a  chain  of  others. 
If  he  studies  their  facts  and  arguments  he  will 
probably  reject  some  of  my  opinions  or  theories, 
modify  others,  and  form  his  own.  If  I  can  do 
any  young  student  this  service,  my  work  will 


x  PREFACE 

have  been  amply  repaid.  America  has  sent  few 
laborers  into  this  rich  harvest  field. 

I  wish  that  this  little  book  might  play  the 
part  of  a  good  host,  and  introduce  many  intel- 
ligent, thoughtful,  and  puzzled  readers  to  the 
company  and  view-point  of  the  prehistorian. 

In  prehistory  we  find  man  entering  upon 
course  after  course  of  hard  and  rigid  discipline 
and  training,  usually  under  the  spur  of  neces- 
sity, the  best  of  all  teachers.  Every  course  lasts 
through  millennia.  Their  chief  end  is  to  social- 
ize and  humanize  individual  men.  Environ- 
ment, natural  or  artificial,  is  a  means  to  this  end. 
It  compels  men  to  struggle,  each  with  himself; 
only  as  men  improve  is  any  marked  change  of 
conditions  possible  or  desirable.  Men  must 
"pass"  in  the  lower  course  before  they  can  be 
promoted  to  the  next  higher,  to  find  here  a 
similar  field  of  struggle  on  a  somewhat  higher 
plane.  Human  evolution,  as  a  process  of  hu- 
manizing and  socializing  man,  is  and  must  be 
chiefly  ethical;  for  ethics  is  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  the  science  and  art  of  living  rightly 
with  one's  neighbor.  And  man  is  incurably  re- 
ligious, always  feeling  after  the  power  or  powers 
in  or  behind  nature,  whose  essential  character 
she  is  compelling  him  to  express,  as  her  inade- 
quate but  only  mouthpiece.     He  will  gradually 


PREFACE  xi 

become  like  what  he  is  feeling  after,  dimly  rec- 
ognizing, and  rudely  worshipping.  These  are 
the  most  important  departments  of  the  school 
of  prehistoric  man. 

The  story  told  us  by  the  evolutionist  and  pre- 
historian  is  full  of  surprises.  It  tells  us  of  the 
failure  of  dominant  species  of  animals  and  of 
promising  races  of  men.  It  shows  men  plodding 
wearily  through  hardship  and  discouragement, 
and  finding  therein  the  road  to  success.  The 
apparently  dormant  peoples  and  periods  often 
prove  in  the  end  to  have  been  those  of  most 
rapid  advance.  "The  race  is  not  to  the  swift 
nor  the  battle  to  the  strong."  But  it  enables  us 
to  plot  the  line  of  human  progress  by  points  far 
enough  apart  to  allow  us  to  distinguish  between 
minor  and  temporary  oscillations  and  fluctua- 
tions and  the  law  of  the  curve.  The  torch  is 
passed  from  people  to  people  and  from  conti- 
nent to  continent,  but  never  falls  or  goes  out. 
There  is  always  a  "saving  remnant."  We  have 
grounds  for  a  reasonable  hope,  not  of  a  millen- 
nium, but  of  success  in  struggle.  The  econo- 
mist, sociologist,  and  even  the  historian,  are 
lookouts  on  the  ship;  evolution  and  prehistory 
must  furnish  chart  and  compass,  and  tell  us 
our  port  of  destination. 

Many  or  most  of  the  best  thoughts  in  this 


xii  PREFACE 

book  are  borrowed.  Some  of  these  borrowings 
are  credited  to  their  owners  in  the  bibliography. 
Of  many  others  I  can  no  longer  remember  the 
source.  The  recollection  of  successive  classes  of 
students  in  Amherst  College,  with  whom  I  have 
discussed  these  topics,  will  always  be  a  source  of 
inspiration  and  gratitude.  I  owe  many  valuable 
suggestions  to  my  colleagues  in  the  faculty, 
especially  to  Professor  F.  B.  Loomis.  To  the 
unfailing  kindness  and  ability  of  Mr.  and  Miss 
Erb,  of  the  Library  of  Columbia  University; 
to  Professor  H.  F.  Osborn  for  his  generous  hos- 
pitality; to  the  staff  of  the  Boston  Public  Li- 
brary; to  Doctor  L.  N.  Wilson,  of  the  Library  of 
Clark  University;  most  of  all,  to  Mr.  R.  L.  Flet- 
cher and  his  assistants,  of  the  Library  of  Amherst 
College,  my  debt  is  greater  than  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  any  word  of  thanks. 


CONTENTS 

Preface  


I.    The  Coming  of  Man 


PAGE 

vii 


THE  ANCESTORS  OF  MAN.  THE  PRIMATES  AND  AR- 
BOREAL LIFE.  THE  DESCENT  FROM  THE  TREES. 
PITHECANTHROPUS.  THE  ORIGINAL  HOMELAND. 
HUMAN  RACES  AND  EARLIEST  MIGRATIONS.  THE 
ARRIVAL  IN  EUROPE.  THE  GREAT  ICE  AGE.  HEI- 
DELBERG MAN.  NEANDERTHAL  AND  CRO-MAGNON 
RACES. 

II.    The  Period  of  Transition.    Sheli^Heaps      36 

THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GLACIERS.  DANISH  SHELL- 
HEAPS.  MUGEM.  MAGELMOSE.  RINNEKALNS. 
AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN  EPOCH  OF  TRANSITION. 
CAMPIGNY.      THE   FIRST   IMMIGRANTS. 

III.  Land  Habitations *53 

NEOLITHIC  CAVE-DWELLERS.  PIT-DWELLINGS  AND 
HUTS.  GROSGARTACH.  FORTIFIED       VILLAGES, 

FOREST,   AND   STEPPE.      LOESS. 

IV.  Lake-Dwellings 69 

PLATFORMS  AND  HOUSES.  DOG,  CATTLE,  PIGS, 
SHEEP.  CULTIVATED  PLANTS.  FRUITS,  SPINNING 
AND   WEAVING-EPOCHS. 

V.     A  Glance  Eastward 91 

CRADLE     OF     NEOLITHIC      CULTURE.      BABYLONIA. 
ANAU,  SUSA.      THE   BEGINNINGS  OF  AGRICULTURE. 
PLATEAUS    AND    PIEDMONT    ZONES.      HOE-TILLAGE. 
THE   PLOUGH.      SUMMARY, 
xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  TAOE 

VI.     Megaliths 114 

DOLMENS.  "GALLERY  CHAMBERS."  MENHIRS. 
DISPOSAL   OF   THE   DEAD.      INCINERATION. 

VII.     Neolithic  Industries 131 

DRESS.  FLINT  AND  BONE  IMPLEMENTS.  AXES. 
MATTOCKS.  FLINT  MINES.  SALT.  GOLD.  COPPER. 
TRADE.  WARES.  AMBER.  TRADE-ROUTES.  POT- 
TERY, BANDED,  CORDED  AND  CALCYCIFORM.  IN- 
CRUSTED   POTTERY. 

VIII.     Neolithic  Chronology 160 

FINAL  RETREAT  OF  GLACIERS.  YOLDIA  EPOCH. 
ANCYLUS  EPOCH — LITTORINA  DEPRESSION.  DATE 
OF  BEGINNING  AND  OF  END  OF  NEOLITHIC  PERIOD. 
FOREST  SUCCESSIONS.  MAGELMOSE  AND  SHELL- 
HEAPS.      SUCCESSIVE   TYPES   OF   AXE.      CHARTS. 

IX.     Neolithic    Peoples    and    Their   Migra- 
tions   179 

palaeolithic  races  and  migrations,  mediter- 
ranean RACE.  ROUTES  OF  MIGRATION.  AFRICAN, 
MEDITERRANEAN,  SOUTH  RUSSIAN  STEPPE  ROUTE. 
NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  AND  THEIR  DISTRIBUTION. 
NORDIC  PEOPLES.  THE  DANUBE  VALLEY.  THE 
"MELTING-POT"  OF  CENTRAL  EUROPE.  PIONEER 
LIFE. 

X.    Neolithic  Religion 206 

PALEOLITHIC  RELIGION,  THE  AGE  OF  WONDER: 
NEOLITHIC  RELIGION  AND  EXPERIENCE.  RITUAL. 
TABOO  AND  TRIBAL  RESPONSIBILITY.  GREEK  MYS- 
TERIES. THE  COMING  OF  THE  OLYMPIANS,  AND 
THE  RETURN  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CULTS.  SOURCES 
OF  THEIR  VITALITY.  CULT  OF  THE  GODDESS  AND 
MOTHER-RIGHT.  RELATION  TO  AGRICULTURE. 
SOCIAL   POSITION   OF   WOMEN. 

XI.    Progress 228^ 

THE  MEDITERRANEAN  AND  THE  BALTIC.  SOURCE 
OF  PROGRESS  NOT  IN  WAR.  AGRICULTURE.  HOME 
TRAINING.  THE  NEIGHBORHOOD.  RELIGION.  PHI- 
LOSOPHY.     MINGLING  OF  CULTURES  AND  PEOPLES. 


CONTENTS  xv 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XII.     The  Coming  op  the  Indo-Europeans      .     246 

ARYAN  AND  EUROPEAN  LANGUAGES.  ORIGINAL 
LANGUAGE;  SPREAD  AND  MODIFICATIONS.  EAR- 
LIEST MIGRATIONS.  THE  ACILEANS.  THE  AGE  OP 
HEROES.  CITY-STATES  IN  GREECE.  ABSORPTION 
OF  INVADERS.  HOMELAND.  INDO-EUROPEAN  RELI- 
GION. PERSISTENCE  OF  NEOLITHIC  SURVIVALS. 
FOLK-LORE  AND  FAIRY-TALE.  COMMON  PEOPLE. 
LEGISLATION.      THE   CHURCH.      LIFE  CURRENTS. 


Bibliography 293 

Index 309 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Reconstructed  Lake-Dwellings       ....  Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Human  Figures,  Spain — Early  Neolithic       ...  32 

Drawings  of  Animals  (Cro-Magnon)  from  Altamira  32 

Shell-Heap 40 

Shell-Heap  Axe 40 

Shell-Heap  Jar 40 

Weaving  and  Plaiting  from  Lake-Dwellings  ...  84 

"Crouching    Burial"     (Hockerbestattung),    Adler- 

borg,  near  Worms 116 

Menhir,  Carnac,  Brittany 116 

Dolmen,  Haga,  Island  of  Borust 116 

Alignment,  Carnac,  Brittany 124 

Modern  Albanian  Peasants  in  Neolithic  Garments  .  132 

Axes  from  Lake-Dwellings  Showing  Attachment  to 

Handles 136 

Boats  from  Rock  Carvings  in  Bohuslan,  Sweden. 

(Early  Bronze  Age) 146 

Pottery  from  Neolithic  Graves 154 

xvii 


xviii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

Pottery 158 

Successive  Stages  and  Forms  of  Baltic  Sea  .      .      .  162 

Forms  of  Prehistoric  Axe 174 

Female  Idols,  Thrace 218 

Female  Idol,  Anau 218 

Ancient  Fishermen 232 

Early  Agriculture 236 

MAP 

Migrations  of  Peoples 184 


THE  NEW  STONE  AGE  IN 
NORTHERN  EUROPE 


The  first  of  the  two  numbers  and  the  letter  in  the  foot-notes 
designate  the  position  in  the  Bibliography  at  the  end  of  the 
volume  of  the  title  referred  to;  the  second  refers  to  the  page  of 
the  book  or  article. 


THE    NEW   STONE    AGE    IN 
NORTHERN    EUROPE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  COMING  OF  MAN 

MAN  has  been  described  as  a  "walking 
museum  of  paleontology."  He  is  like 
a  mountain  whose  foundations  were 
laid  in  a  time  so  ancient  that  even  the  paleon- 
tologist hardly  finds  a  record  to  decipher;  whose 
strata  testify  to  the  progress  of  life  through 
all  the  succeeding  ages;  whose  surface,  deeply 
ploughed  by  the  glaciers,  is  clothed  with  grass 
and  forest,  flower  and  fruit,  the  harvest  of  the 
life  of  to-day. 

Some  of  his  organs  are  exceedingly  old,  while 
others  are  but  of  yesterday;  yet  all  are  highly 
developed  in  due  proportion,  knit  and  harmo- 
nized in  a  marvellously  tough,  vigorous,  adapt- 
able body,  the  instrument  of  a  thinking  and 
willing  mind.  Most  surviving  animals  have 
outlived  their  day  of  progress;  they  have  "ex- 
hausted their  lead,"  to  borrow  a  miner's  expres- 
sion, and  have  settled  down  in  equilibrium  with 
their  surroundings.     But  discontented  man  is 


4  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

wisely  convinced  that  his  golden  age  lies  in  the 
future,  and  that  his  best  possessions  are  his 
hopes  and  dreams,  his  castles  in  Spain.  He  is 
chiefly  a  bundle  of  vast  possibilities,  of  great 
expectations,  compared  with  which  his  achieve- 
ments and  realizations  are  scarcely  larger  than 
the  central  point  of  a  circle  compared  with  its 
area. 

Physically  he  belongs  to  the  great  branch  or 
phylum  of  vertebrate  animals  having  a  back- 
bone —  sometimes  only  a  rod  of  cartilage  —  an 
internal  locomotive  skeleton,  giving  the  possi- 
bility of  great  strength  and  swiftness,  and  of 
large  size.  Large  size,  with  its  greater  heat- 
producing  mass  relative  to  its  radiating  sur- 
face, implies  the  possibility  of  warm  blood,  or 
constant  high  temperature,  resulting  in  greater 
activity  of  all  the  organs,  especially  of  the 
glands  and  the  nervous  system.  Large  size,  as 
a  rule,  is  accompanied  by  long  life  —  giving  op- 
portunities for  continuous  and  wide  experience, 
and  hence  for  intelligence.  Yet  most  verte- 
brates have  remained  cold-blooded,  and  only  a 
"saving  remnant"  even  of  men  is  really  in- 
telligent. Man  belongs  to  the  highest  class  of 
vertebrates,  the  Mammals,  which  produce  liv- 
ing young  and  suckle  them.  Among  the  high- 
est mammals,  the  Primates,  or  apes,  the  length 


THE  COMING  OF  MAN  5 

of  the  periods  of  gestation,  of  suckling  the  young, 
and  of  childhood,  with  its  dependence  upon  the 
mother,  have  become  so  long  that  she  absolutely 
requires  some  sort  of  help  and  protection  from 
the  male  parent.  From  this  necessity  have 
sprung  various  grades  and  forms  of  what  we 
may  venture  to  call  family  life,  with  all  its  ad- 
vantages. How  many  mammals  have  attained 
genuine  family  life  and  how  many  men  have 
realized  its  possibilities?1 

The  upward  march  of  our  ancestors  was 
neither  easy  nor  rapid.  They  were  anything 
but  precocious.  They  were  always  ready  to 
balk  at  progress,  stiff-necked  creatures  who  had 
to  be  driven  and  sternly  held  in  the  line  of 
progress  by  stronger  competitors.  The  ances- 
tors of  vertebrates  maintained  the  swimming 
habit,  which  resulted  in  the  development  of  the 
internal  skeleton  and  finally  of  a  backbone,  not 
because  it  was  easiest  or  most  desirable,  but  be- 
cause any  who  went  to  the  rich  feeding-grounds 
of  the  sea-bottom  were  eaten  up  by  the  mol- 
lusks  and  crabs.  Our  earliest  air-breathing  an- 
cestors were  crowded  toward,  and  finally  to 
the  land,  and  into  air-breathing  by  the  pressure 
of  stronger  marine  forms  like  sharks,  or  by  cli- 
matic changes.2     Reptiles,  not  mammals,  domi- 

1 16,  17.  » 1:  477;  671,  chap.  XXIX. 


6  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

nated  the  earth  throughout  the  Mesozoic  era, 
and  harried  our  ancestors  into  agility  and  wari- 
ness; at  a  later  period  the  apes  remained  in  the 
school  of  arboreal  life  mainly  because  the  ground 
was  forbidden  and  policed  by  the  Carnivora. 
They  and  their  forebears  were  compelled  to  fore- 
go some  present  ease  and  comfort,  but  always 
kept  open  the  door  to  the  future. 

In  spite  of  all  this  vigorous  policing,  malin- 
gerers and  deserters  turned  aside  from  the  up- 
ward line  of  march  at  every  unguarded  point  or 
fork  in  the  road,  escaped  from  the  struggle,  and 
settled  down  in  ease  and  stagnation  or  degenera- 
tion, like  our  very  distant  cousins,  the  monkeys 
and  lower  apes.  Long-continued  progress  is  a 
marked  exception,  not  the  rule,  in  the  animal 
world,  and  is  maintained  only  by  the  "saving 
remnant."  And  these  continue  to  progress 
mainly  because  Nature  is  "always  a-chi vying 
of  them  and  a-telling  them  to  move  on,"  as 
Poor  Joe  said  of  Detective  Bucket,  and  her 
guiding  wand  is  the  spur  of  necessity. 

The  Primates,  or  apes,  are,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  highest  order  of  the  great  class  of  mammals. 
Most  of  them,  like  other  comparatively  defense- 
less vertebrates,  are  gregarious  or  even  social.1 
They  have  a  feeling  of  kind,  if  not  of  kindness, 

]18. 


THE  COMING  OF  MAN  7 

toward  one  another.  This  sociability,  together 
with  the  family  as  a  unit  of  social  structure,  has 
contributed  incalculably  to  human  intellectual 
and  moral  development.  Man  is  a  Primate,  a 
distant  cousin  of  the  highest  apes,  though  no 
one  of  these  represents  our  "furry  arboreal  an- 
cestor with  pointed  ears."  Arboreal  life  was 
an  excellent  preparatory  training  toward  hu- 
man development.  Our  primate  ancestor  was 
probably  of  fair  size.  In  climbing  he  set  his 
feet  on  one  branch  and  grasped  with  his  hands 
the  branch  above  his  head.  Foot  and  leg  were 
used  to  support  the  body,  hand  and  arm  for 
pulling.  Thus  the  hand  became  a  true  hand 
and  the  foot  a  genuine  foot,  opening  up  the 
possibility  of  the  erect  posture  on  the  ground 
and  the  adaptation  of  the  hand  to  higher  uses. 
Meanwhile  the  climbing  and  leaping  from  branch 
to  branch,  the  measuring  with  the  eye  of  dis- 
tances and  strength  of  branches,  the  power  of 
grasping  the  right  point  at  the  right  instant, 
and  all  the  complicated  series  of  movements 
combined  in  this  form  of  locomotion  furnished 
a  marvellous  set  of  exercises  not  only  for  the 
muscles  but  for  the  higher  centres  in  the  cortex 
of  the  brain.  Very  probably  gregarious  life  and 
rude  play,  so  common  among  apes,  was  an  ex- 
tension course  along  somewhat  similar  lines. 


8  THE   NEW  STONE  A(iK 

Our  ancestors  became  at  home  in  and  well 
adapted  to  arboreal  life,  l>ui  the  adaptation  was 
never  extreme.  Ii  was  rather  what  Jones'  has 
called  «i  "successful  minimal  adaptation."  They 
used  arboreal  life  withoul  abusing  ii  by  over- 
adaptation,  vvliieli  would  have  enslaved  them, 
and  made  life  on  the  ground  an  impossibility 
wlnri  the  time  came  Tor  their  promotion  to  this 
new  and  more  advanced  stage. 

Ai.  the  close  of  his  arboreal  life  the  ape  had 
inherited  or  acquired  the  following  assets:  His 
vertebrate  and  mammalian  structure  had  given 
him  ji  large,  vigorous,  compact,  athletic,  adapt- 
able body.  The  mammalian  care  of  the  young 
had  insured  their  survival,  but  only  at  the  ex 
pense  of  great  strain  and  risk  of  the  mother. 
Something  at  leasl  approaching  family  life  was 
already  attained.  Arboreal  life  with  its  gym- 
nastic training  had  moulded  the  body,  differ- 
entiated hand  and  foot,  ^iven  the  possibility  of 
erect  posture,  emancipating  the  hand  from  the 
work  of  locomotion  and  setting  ii  Tree  to  be- 
come  ;i  tool-fashioning  and  tool-using  organ. 
The  ape  has  keen  sense-organs,  an  eye  Tor  dis- 
tances,  and  other  conditions;  and  the  use  <>r 
these  powers  has  given  him  a  brain  far  superior 
to  that  of  any  of  his  humbler  fellows.    These 


THE  COMING   OF   MAN  9 

are  lull  of  greal  possibilities  and  opportunities! 
if  he  will  only  use  them. 

Bui  why  did  our  ancestor  descend  from  his 
place  of  safety  in  the  trees  and  live  on  the 
ground}  exposed  to  the  attacks  of  fierce,  swift, 
and  well-armed  enemies?  Very  few  of  the 
Primates,  except  the  rock  and  cliff-inhabiting 
baboons,  ever  made  this  great  venture.  There 
must  have  been  some  quite  compelling  argument 

to    induce   him    lo    lake   SO   great   a    risk.     The 

change  look  place  probably  ai  some  time  dur- 
ing the  latter  half  of  the  Cenozoic  or  Tertiary 

period,  the  last  greal  division  of  geological  time, 

the  Age  of  mammals*1  The  earliesl  Tertiary 
Epoch,  the  Eocene,  was  a  time  of  warm  and 
equable  climate,  when  apes  lived  far  uorth  in 

Europe,   and   doubtless   in    Asia    also.      Some  of 

these  apes  were  of  fair  or  large  size,  showing 

that  Conditions  were  favorable  and  food  abun- 
dant. The  next  epoch,  the  Oligoccne,  was  sim- 
ilar but  somewhat  cooler.  The  third,  the  Mi- 
ocene, was  cooler  still  and  dryer.  Palms  now 
forsook  northern  Fairope,  being  gradually  driven 
farther  and  farther  south.  Life  became  more 
difficult,  food  scarcer.  Apes  could  not  longer 
survive  in  northern  Kurope,  but  had  to  seek  a 
warmer,    more    fax  enable,    environment    farther 

1  v 


10  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

south,  for  many  of  the  fruit  and  food  trees  had 
been  crowded  out  and  famine  threatened.1 
But  insects  and  other  small  and  toothsome  an- 
imals remained  on  the  ground,  and  were  abun- 
dant along  the  shores  of  rivers  and  lakes. 
There,  too,  were  fruits  and  berries,  roots  and 
tubers.  There  the  food  supply  was  still  more 
than  sufficient. 

Thus  far  we  have  glanced  at  Europe  only. 
But  the  same  changes  are  taking  place  in  Asia, 
the  cradle  and  home  of  most  placental  mam- 
mals, the  main  area  of  a  huge  zoological  province 
of  which  Europe  was  but  a  westward  projec- 
tion, and  with  which  America  had  direct  con- 
nection from  time  to  time  in  the  region  of 
Behring's  Straits.  Here,  during  late  Miocene 
and  early  Pliocene  times,  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  Cenozoic  era,  a  dryer  and  somewhat  harsher 
climate  had  been  accompanied  by  the  appear- 
ance of  wide  plains  fitted  for  grazing  animals, 
as  well  as  stretches  of  forest,  with  all  varieties 
of  landscape  favoring  great  diversity  as  well  as 
abundance  of  mammalian  life.  It  was,  perhaps, 
the  golden  age  for  most  mammals,  when  food 
was  plenty,  climate  not  too  severe,  and  every 
prospect  pleased.  This  slow  and  gradual,  but 
fairly  steady,  lowering  of  temperature  was  to 

*6. 


THE   COMING   OF  MAN  11 

culminate  in  the  Great  Ice  Age  of  the  Pleis- 
tocene Epoch,  so  destructive  to  mammalian  life 
in  the  northern  hemisphere. 

A  second  climatic  change,  perhaps  even  more 
important  than  the  lowering  temperature,  was 
the  increase  of  aridity.  Even  during  the  Oli- 
gocene  Epoch  "the  flora  indicates  a  lessening 
humidity  and  a  clearer  differentiation  of  the 
seasons."1  The  great  trough  of  the  inland  sea 
which  had  stretched  from  the  Mediterranean 
to  the  Indian  Ocean  began  to  rise,  the  first  up- 
lift taking  place  along  the  Pyrenees  and  western 
Alps.  The  Miocene  was  marked  by  a  series  of 
great  movements.  The  old  inland  sea  was  dis- 
placed, subsidence  gave  place  to  uplift,  and  the 
greatest  mountain  system  of  the  globe,  including 
the  Alps  and  the  Himalayas,  began  to  grow 
through  vast  repeated  uplifts  in  the  crust.2 
The  continents  were  elevated  and  widened. 
The  forest-dwelling  types  became  restricted  and 
largely  exterminated,  and  animals  of  the  plains, 
in  the  form  of  horses,  rhinoceroses,  and  the 
cloven-hoofed  ruminants,  expanded  in  numbers 
and  in  species.  This  profound  faunal  change 
implies  dryer  climate.  There  was  now  a  lesser 
area  of  tropic  seas  to  give  moisture  to  the  at- 
mosphere.    The  mountains  were  now  effective 

!8:20.  2  5:  58-60. 


12  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

barriers,  shutting  off  the  moisture-bearing  winds 
from  the  interior  of  the  continents. 

These  changes  would  have  been  noticeable  in 
Europe  north  of  the  Alps,  but  were  far  more  so 
in  central  Asia  along  the  northern  face  of  the 
great  plateau  of  Thibet,  with  its  eastern  and 
western  buttresses,  and  its  towering  rampart  of 
the  Himalayas  on  the  south,  cutting  off  the 
warm  moisture  of  the  Indian  Ocean.  North- 
ward of  this  vast  plateau  and  westward  over  the 
far  less  elevated  Iranian  plateau  and  Afghani- 
stan, forest  was  fast  being  replaced  by  park- 
lands  of  mingled  groves  and  glades,  or  by  grassy 
plains,  or  even  by  dry  steppes.  Dessication, 
aridity  of  climate,  was  fast  compelling  forest 
and  arboreal  mammals  to  migrate  or  radically 
change  their  habits  of  life.1 

Almost  all  the  apes  found  their  old  environ- 
ment and  continued  their  arboreal  life  by  mi- 
grating far  southward  through  India  or  into 
Africa.  But  at  the  rear  of  the  retreating  host 
were  forms  from  the  cooler  northern  regions. 
They  were  hardy  and  vigorous,  and  probably 
larger  than  most  of  their  fellows.  Possibly  some 
of  them  were  caught  in  isolated  decreasing  areas 
of  forest  surrounded  by  steppe  or  plain.  Some 
of  them,  at  least,  began  to  descend  from  the 

1  M :  chap.  V. 


THE   COMING  OF  MAN  13 

trees,  to  seek  the  new  food  supplies  of  river- 
sides, glades,  and  thickets,  and  thus  gradually 
to  become  accustomed  to  life  on  the  ground. 
It  was  a  very  hazardous  experiment;  only  the 
most  hardy  and  wary  and  the  quickest  in  per- 
ception, wit,  and  movement  survived.  Among 
these  were  our  ancestors,  driven  like  all  their 
forebears  by  the  spur  of  necessity  into  a  new 
mode  of  life  under  trying  conditions. 

They  were  still  only  apes,  with  long  arms  and 
short  legs,  and  probably  scrambled  mostly  on 
all  fours.  They  had  heavy  brows,  retreating 
foreheads,  projecting  jaws,  and  a  brutal  physi- 
ognomy. Of  the  mental  life  of  the  man  who 
was  to  be  descended  from  them  there  were  few 
signs.  They  were  bundles  of  very  slight  possi- 
bilities. 

But  let  us  not  "despise  the  day  of  small 
things."  They  were  still  far  from  the  invisible 
line  between  apedom  and  manhood.  Physically 
they  resembled  man  quite  closely.  They  had 
hand  and  foot,  and  a  fair-sized  brain,  though 
they  had  scarcely  begun  to  realize  the  possibili- 
ties of  these  structures. 

Arboreal  life  could  teach  them  little  more; 
continuance  in  that  school  would  have  meant 
a  very  comfortable  stagnation.  They  were  now 
promoted  to  a  new  school  of  vastly  more  diffi- 


14  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

cult  problems,  greater  risks  and  dangers,  and 
more  severe  and  trying  discipline.  They  had 
had  an  excellent  course  of  manual  and  sensory 
training;  now  they  must  continue  this  and  add 
to  it  the  use  of  whatever  wits  they  had,  under 
peril  of  death.  Nature  was  still  compelling 
them  to  "move  on." 

This  descent  to  the  ground  probably  was  ac- 
complished either  in  India  or  on  the  Iranian 
plateau,  or  somewhat  farther  to  the  northeast, 
somewhere  in  the  great  horseshoe  of  parkland 
which  curved  around  the  western  buttress  of 
the  great  central  Asiatic  plateau  of  Thibet. 
Can  we  locate  it  somewhat  more  definitely  ?  * 

At  this  time,  during  the  Pliocene  Epoch,  there 
were  being  deposited  in  India  the  so-called  Si- 
walik  strata  —  vast,  ancient  flood-plains,  stretch- 
ing for  a  distance  of  1,500  miles  along  the 
southern  foot-hills  of  the  Himalayas.  They  are 
composed  of  materials  washed  down  from  the 
mountains  by  a  system  of  rivers,  persisting  with 
little  change  into  the  present.  Says  Osborn  of 
the  mammals  found  here:  "It  is  altogether  the 
grandest  assemblage  of  mammals  the  world  has 
ever  seen,  distributed  through  southern  and  east- 
ern Asia,  and  probably,  if  our  vision  could  be 
extended,  ranging  westward  toward  Persia  and 

1 1:671. 


THE  COMING  OF  MAN  15 

Arabia  into  northern  Africa.  It  is  the  most 
truly  cosmopolitan  aggregation  because  in  its 
Upper  Pliocene  stage  it  represents  a  congress  of 
mammals  from  four  great  continents.  .  .  .  The 
only  continents  which  do  not  contribute  to  this 
assemblage  are  South  America  and  Australia."1 
The  older,  Miocene,  portions  of  this  fauna  are 
chiefly  browsing  forest  forms,  emphasized  by 
the  absence  of  both  horses  and  Hipparion,  as 
well  as  of  grazing  types  of  cattle  and  antelopes. 
Grazing  forms,  showing  the  decline  of  the  forest 
and  the  spread  of  open  parkland  and  grassy 
areas,  become  abundant  during  the  Pliocene 
Epoch.  "Among  the  Primates  we  find  the 
Orang,  an  ape  now  confined  to  Borneo  and  Su- 
matra; also  the  Chimpanzee,  another  ape,  now 
confined  to  Africa,  the  Siwalik  species  display- 
ing a  more  human  type  of  dentition  than  that 
of  the  existing  African  form." 

In  the  older,  Miocene,  portion  we  find  Siva- 
pithecus,  an  ape  which  Pilgrim  considers  as 
more  nearly  resembling  man  than  any  other 
genus  of  anthropoids,  while  Gregory  speaks  of 
it  as  belonging  to  the  anthropoid  line.2  Some- 
what later,  in  late  Pliocene  or  early  Pleistocene, 
there  was  living  not  far  away,  in  Java,  a  far 
more  renowned  form,  Pithecanthropus  erectus,  Du 

1  5:  321,  327,  275.  »  7,  10. 


16  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

Bois,  which  seems  to  stand  almost  exactly  mid- 
way between  higher  apes  and  man.  The  re- 
mains consisted  of  two  molar  teeth,  a  thigh-bone, 
and  the  top  of  a  skull.  The  cranium  is  low,  the 
forehead  exceedingly  retreating,  giving  but  very 
small  space  for  the  frontal  lobes  of  the  brain. 
But  the  brain-cast,  made  from  the  cranial  cavity, 
shows,  according  to  Du  Bois,  that  the  speech 
area  is  about  twice  as  large  as  in  certain  apes, 
though  only  one-half  as  large  as  in  man.  In 
size  the  brain  stands  somewhat  above  midway 
between  the  highest  recent  apes  and  the  low- 
est existing  men.  The  thigh-bone  shows  that 
Pithecanthropus  could  have  stood  and  walked 
erect  quite  comfortably.  There  has  been  and 
still  is  much  difference  of  opinion  regarding  the 
position  of  this  most  interesting  being.  Opin- 
ion was  long  divided  nearly  equally  between 
those  who  considered  it  as  the  highest  ape 
and  others  who  held  it  to  be  the  very  lowest 
man. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that,  when  Pithecan- 
thropus was  alive,  "Java  was  a  part  of  the 
Asiatic  continent;  and  similar  herds  of  great 
mammals  roamed  freely  over  the  plains  from 
the  foot-hills  of  the  Himalaya  Mountains  to  the 
borders  of  the  ancient  Trinil  River,  while  sim- 
ilar apes  inhabited  the  forests.     At  the  same 


THE   COMING  OF  MAN  17 

time  the  Orang  may  have  entered  the  forests 
of  Borneo,  which  are  at  present  its  home."1 
Where  man's  distant  cousins,  the  anthropoid 
apes,  and  his  still  nearer  relation,  Pithecan- 
thropus, were  all  living  and  some,  at  least,  ap- 
parently progressing,  could  hardly  have  been 
far  from  his  original  home.  But  the  climatic 
conditions  of  that  time  lead  us  to  seek  his  orig- 
inal cradle  somewhat  farther  northward  than 
India,  or  even  Beluchistan,  and  nearer  to,  if 
not  in,  the  great  steppe  zone  of  central  Asia. 
We  lose  sight  of  our  ape-man  as  he  is  advancing 
toward  the  threshold  of  manhood,  not  far  away. 
Whether  we  think  that  Pithecanthropus  was  ap- 
proaching or  had  already  passed  it  depends 
much  upon  where  we  draw  the  line  between 
ape  and  man,  a  line  largely  artificial  and  as 
difficult  to  fix  as  the  day  and  hour  when  the 
youth  becomes  of  age,  and  what  human  char- 
acteristics we  select  to  mark  it.  In  his  erect 
posture  and  some  other  physical  traits  he  seems 
already  to  have  attained  manhood;  mentally 
he  was  probably  far  inferior  to  even  the  low- 
est savage  races  of  to-day.  We  are  not  sure 
whether  he  was  our  ancestor  or  merely  a  cousin 
of  our  ancestor,  once  or  twice  removed;  we  still 
lack  foundations  for  any  hypotheses  as  to  ex- 

1 24^26. 


18  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

actly  when,  where,  or  how  the  erect  ancestral 
ape-man  emerged  into  real  manhood. 

Millennia  passed  between  the  days  of  Pithe- 
canthropus and  the  first  human  migrations,  and 
we  may  imagine  primitive  man  as  having  be- 
come fairly  well  accustomed  to  life  on  the 
ground,  and  as  having  mastered  his  first  les- 
sons in  meeting  its  dangers  and  difficulties.  He 
had  probably  taken  possession  of  a  much  wider 
area  than  the  home  of  the  ape-man,  perhaps  of 
the  whole  of  the  parkland  zone  curving  around 
the  western  buttresses  of  the  plateau  of  Thibet. 
From  this  region  routes  of  migration  radiated 
in  all  directions,  all  the  more  open  because  of  the 
elevation  of  land  which  lasted  through  Upper 
Pliocene  and  early  Pleistocene  times.1  Sumatra 
and  Java  then  formed  an  extension  of  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  reaching  more  than  1,000  miles  into 
the  Indian  Ocean;  while  the  Orang  seems  to 
have  been  able  to  reach  Borneo  somewhat 
earlier.  The  way  was  equally  clear  westward 
into  Europe,  the  Dardanelles  being  then  re- 
placed by  a  land  bridge,  while  a  second  bridge 
spanned  the  Mediterranean  over  Sicily  into 
Italy,  and  a  third  existed  at  Gibraltar.2  These 
routes  were  evidently  followed  by  herds  of  great 

1  5: 373.  2  40:  35. 


THE   COMING  OF  MAN  19 

herbivora,  and  probably  by  the  earliest  human 
emigrants  into  Europe. 

Following  Keane,1  we  shall  divide  mankind 
into  four  great  groups  or  races,  and  then  glance 
at  their  radiation  from  southwestern  Asia  to- 
ward all  parts  of  the  globe.  These  great  primi- 
tive divisions  are: 

I.  Negroids.  Color  yellowish  brown  to  black, 
stature  large  or  very  small.  Hair  short,  black 
or  reddish  brown,  frizzly,  flattened-elliptical 
in  cross-section.  Nose  broad  and  flattened. 
Cheek-bones  small,  somewhat  retreating.  Ex- 
amples: Negritoes,  Negroes. 

II.  Mongoloids.  Color  yellowish.  Stature 
below  average.  Hair  coarse,  lank,  round  in 
cross-section.  Nose  very  small.  Cheek-bones 
prominent.  Examples:  Malays,  Chinese,  Japa- 
nese, Thibetans,  Siberian  "Hyperboreans." 

III.  Americans.  Color  reddish  or  coppery. 
Stature  large.  Hair  long,  lank,  coarse,  black, 
round  in  cross-section.  Nose  large,  bridged,  or 
aquiline.  Cheek-bones  moderately  prominent. 
(Probably  a  branch  of  II.)  Examples:  Indians 
of  North  and  South  America. 

IV.  Caucasians.  Color  pale  or  florid.  Hair 
long,  wavy  or  straight,  elliptical  in  cross-section. 
Nose  large,   straight   or   arched.     Cheek-bones 

J30:  228. 


20  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

small,  unmarked.  Examples:  Hamitic,  Semitic, 
and  European  peoples. 

We  may  now  imagine  quite  primitive  human 
beings  starting  from  their  early  home  and  seek- 
ing their  fortunes  widely  apart.  They  came 
under  quite  different  climatic  and  other  physi- 
cal conditions.  Their  environment,  problems, 
stimuli,  and  opportunities  were  unlike.  Thus, 
having  become  more  or  less  unlike  in  the  home- 
land, they  gradually  became  differentiated  into 
the  present  great  groups  or  races  already  men- 
tioned. Some  started  earlier  or  marched  more 
rapidly  than  others.  Many  proved  unequal  to 
the  dangers  and  difficulties  of  the  journey  or  new 
place  of  settlement,  and  disappeared.  Many 
stagnated  or  degenerated.  Only  the  compara- 
tively successful  or  fortunate  have  survived. 
Hence,  our  scheme  is  hardly  an  adequate  ex- 
pression of  prehistoric  racial  groups  and  their 
characteristics,  except  in  very  general  outline. 

We  have  seen  that  the  apes,  retreating  before 
the  approach  of  harsh  and  dry  climatic  condi- 
tions and  diminished  forest  areas  and  food 
supply,  migrated  southward  into  India  and 
Africa.  The  Orang  settled  in  Borneo,  Pithe- 
canthropus in  Java,  the  Chimpanzee  and  Gorilla 
went  into  Africa.  These  routes  presented  the 
fewest  difficulties  and  demanded  the  least  re- 


THE   COMING  OF  MAN  %\ 

adaptation  or  change  of  habit.  The  climate 
was  mild  and  food  generally  abundant  and  easily 
obtained.  Their  environment  was  neither  stim- 
ulating, trying,  nor  exacting.  Progress  was 
hardly  to  be  expected,  but  survival  was  far 
easier  than  in  more  northerly  regions. 

The  Negritos  followed  almost  exactly  the 
same  routes.  We  find  them  purest  and  per- 
haps least  modified  in  the  "Pygmies"  of  the 
African  forests;  but  also  in  the  Malay  Penin- 
sula, the  Andaman  Islands,  and  the  Philippines. 
De  Morgan  believes  that  he  has  found  proofs  of 
their  presence  on  the  Iranian  plateau  at  a  com- 
paratively late  date. 

Behind  them  Negroid  peoples  poured  into 
Africa,  apparently  in  successive  waves.  Some 
of  them  went  into  the  Malay  Peninsula,  prob- 
ably generally  submerging  the  Negritos,  and 
reached  New  Guinea  and  Australia.  Inhabiting 
a  series  of  islands  and  other  more  or  less  isolated 
areas,  mingling  often  with  Negritos,  probably 
later  also  more  or  less  with  the  Malays,  they 
became  much  modified,  and  their  relations  to 
the  African  Negroes  and  to  one  another  are 
still  anything  but  clear. 

The  Mongoloids  pushed  eastward.  The  earli- 
est migrations  seem  to  be  those  of  the  Malays, 
a  great,  very  interesting,  and  little-known  though 


22  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

much-studied  group  of  peoples.  They  followed 
the  oceanic  Negritos  along  the  Malay  Peninsula 
and  occupied  the  great  chains  of  islands  stretch- 
ing through  the  Indian  Ocean  and  far  into  the 
Pacific,  through  more  than  ninety  degrees  of 
longitude  along  the  equator.  But  much  of  this 
spread  is  probably  of  quite  recent  date. 

The  Mongoloid  peoples  seem  to  have  passed 
along  the  northern  front  of  the  Central  Asiatic 
plateau  into  Siberia,  China,  and  Japan,  and  to 
have  sent  off  the  great  American  branch.  Even 
before  the  Mongols  had  started  on  their  east- 
ward journey  the  Caucasians  may  have  turned 
westward,  following  the  old  Negroid  route. 
There  was  probably  also  more  or  less  of  an  east- 
ern dispersal,  but  we  cannot  consider  the  prob- 
lem of  these  Oriental  Caucasic  remnants  and 
traces.  The  great  body  went  westward.  The 
Hamitic  peoples  distributed  themselves  along 
the  southern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  and 
many  may  well  have  occupied  a  large  part  of  the 
Sahara  region,  then  a  land  of  water-courses 
capable  of  supporting  a  large  population.  Be- 
hind them  came  the  Semitic  folk.  Judging  from 
their  languages  the  Hamitic  and  Semitic  peo- 
ples seem  to  have  been  in  contact  over  a  wide 
area,  and  for  a  long  space  of  time.  The 
Semites  found  a  new  and  permanent  home  in 


THE  COMING  OF  MAN  23 

Arabia,  on  whose  plateaus  and  surrounding 
grass-lands  they  increased  and  multiplied,  and 
sent  off  fresh  waves  of  migration  and  conquest 
in  all  directions. 

We  have  already  noticed  that  our  classifica- 
tion of  races  is  based  upon  a  study  of  recent 
and  still  surviving  peoples.  The  very  earliest 
inhabitants  of  Europe  would  find  no  place  in 
it.  Probably  they  long  antedated  the  Hamites. 
African  Negroids  and  Caucasians  came  from  a 
common  home,  and  journeyed  for  a  time  over 
a  common  road,  though  probably  at  far  different 
times.  It  would  be  strange  if  the  earliest  in- 
habitants of  Europe  showed  no  traces  of  this 
common  home  and  ancestry.  Since  the  re- 
mote period  which  we  are  considering  Negroes 
and  Caucasians  have  become  widely  different, 
and  their  racial  characters  have  become  clear 
and  sharp.  This  may  not  have  been  altogether 
the  case  with  the  first  peoples  to  arrive  in  Eu- 
rope. But  attempts  to  relate  the  Neanderthal 
crania  with  those  of  modern  Australians  or 
Tasmanians,  or  any  existing  race,  have  met 
with  no  great  success.  In  regard  to  these  ques- 
tions we  are  still  in  the  dark. 

Beside  the  African  routes  into  Europe,  along 
the  south  shore  of  the  Mediterranean  and  over 
the  Sicilian  and  Gibraltar  land  bridges,  while 


24  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

they  lasted,  two  others  must  be  noticed.  One 
of  these  extended  through  Asia  Minor  and  across 
the  land  bridge  at  the  Dardanelles,  while  the 
second  led  westward  along  the  northern  border 
of  the  Caspian  and  Black  Seas  and  the  Caucasus 
Mountains.  The  most  southerly  of  these  four 
routes  through  Africa  were  probably  the  first 
to  be  travelled,  the  most  northerly  last  of  all. 
We  shall  have  to  study  these  routes  more  closely 
in  a  later  chapter. 

It  was  at  some  time  during  the  Glacial  period, 
the  Great  Ice  Age,  when  a  vast  ice-cap  covered 
northern  Europe  with  glaciers  extending  far 
southward  and  advancing  or  retreating  accord- 
ing to  climatic  conditions,  that  man  arrived  in 
Europe.  During  the  first  Glacial  Epoch  the  ad- 
vance of  the  ice  covered  the  most  northern  part 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  Rhine  valley  almost  as 
far  south  as  Cologne;  Scandinavia  was  com- 
pletely buried,  like  central  Greenland  to-day, 
and  North  Germany  probably  to  the  Harz 
Mountains.  Eastward  the  southern  edge  of  the 
ice  sheet  ran  nearly  along  the  line  of  50°  N.  lat. 
across  Russia.  In  Siberia  the  effects  were  less 
marked  and  the  limits  were  much  farther  north- 
ward. Between  the  parallel  of  50°  and  the 
northern  edge  of  the  Alpine  glaciers  a  zone  was 


THE   COMING  OF  MAN  25 

left  ice-free,  but  three-fifths  of  Germany  was 
overwhelmed.  Southern  England  and  France, 
not  yet  separated  by  the  English  Channel, 
formed  one  great  habitable  province,  and  but  a 
small  part  of  France  was  glaciated.  The  cli- 
mate was  tempered  by  proximity  to  the  sea.1 
The  average  yearly  temperature  of  northern 
Europe  was  probably  not  more  than  4°-6° 
Cent.  (39°-43°  Fahr.),  which  is  colder  than  at 
present.  But  the  formation  of  these  enormous 
masses  of  ice  demanded  heavy  snowfall  and  a 
moist  or  very  damp  climate.  Hence  the  edge 
of  the  great  ice  sheet  advanced  or  retreated  ac- 
cording to  climatic  conditions. 

There  were  four  periods  of  advance  before 
the  final  retreat  of  the  ice,  not  counting  minor 
oscillations.2  These  are  known  as  the  Gunz, 
Mindel,  Riss,  and  Wurm  Glacial  Epochs.  Al- 
ternating with  these  were  the  interglacial  epochs 
of  ice  retreat  —  the  Gunz-Mindel,  Mindel-Riss, 
and  Riss- Wurm;  while  the  final  retreat  is 
usually  termed  post-glacial.  During  the  first 
and  second  interglacial  epochs  the  climate  ap- 
pears to  have  been  warmer  than  at  present. 
But  at  times  dryness  may  have  contributed  to 
the  retreat  of  the  ice  even  more  than  warmth, 

1  40:  chap.  II.     D:  I,  17-110. 

2  For  maps  showing  extent  of  ice  at  different  glacial  epochs,  see  41 : 
vol.  II,  p.  419.     42:  end  of  volume. 


26  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

and  then  the  climate  would  have  been  conti- 
nental, harsh,  and  extreme. 

Even  during  epochs  of  glacial  advance  con- 
ditions in  France  and  in  the  German  zone  must 
have  been  better  than  we  should  expect.  Some 
kind  of  grazing  or  browsing  pasturage  must  have 
been  rich  and  abundant  to  support  large  animals 
like  the  reindeer  or  even  the  woolly  mammoths 
characteristic  of  the  second  and  third  glacial 
epochs,  which  furnished  abundant  food  for 
prehistoric  hunters.  Farther  south  the  glacial 
epochs  may  well  have  been  times  of  heavy  rain- 
fall, transforming  the  Sahara  desert  and  the 
dryer  steppes  and  plateaus  of  Asia  into  verita- 
ble gardens. 

The  retreating  ice  left  behind  it  a  land  cov- 
ered with  rocks,  clays,  gravels,  and  sands 
brought  by  the  glaciers  and  their  streams. 
Here  and  there  basins  had  been  gouged  out 
where  lakes  or  ponds  long  remained  —  as  in 
Maine  and  Minnesota  to-day  —  to  be  later 
drained,  or,  if  shallow,  to  be  overgrown  with 
sphagnum  and  changed  into  great  bogs.  Scat- 
tered thickets  of  shrubs  and  stunted  hardy  trees, 
poplars,  willows,  and  others  occurred.  In  shel- 
tered and  well-drained  valleys  and  mountain- 
sides the  trees  grew  larger  and  even  forests  be- 
gan   to    appear.    This    tundra   landscape   still 


THE   COMING  OF  MAN  27 

characterizes   wide   areas   of   northern   Canada 
and  Siberia.1 

The  tundra  was  followed  by  steppe  condi- 
tions, where  elevation  of  land  to  the  north  and 
northwest  had  cut  off  the  tempering  oceanic 
winds.  The  climate  was  harsh,  dry,  continental, 
with  cold  winters  and  hot  summers.  The  winds 
carried  great  storms  of  dust  and  piled  it  up  in 
drifts  in  valleys  and  on  suitably  situated  moun- 
tainsides in  the  form  of  loess,  so  important  to 
the  future  agricultural  development  of  Europe, 
though  its  most  massive  accumulation  is  seen 
in  China,  which  received  and  held  the  driftings 
from  the  great  elevated  plains  of  central  Asia. 
As  the  climate  became  moister,  if  the  tempera- 
ture did  not  fall  too  low,  steppe  finally  gave 
way  to  the  meadow  and  forest  of  modern  Europe. 
Tundra,  steppe,  and  forest  had  each  its  special 
types  of  animal  as  well  as  plant  life.  The  char- 
acteristic tundra  animal  is  the  reindeer,  though 
musk-ox,  woolly  mammoth,  and  others  were 
wide-spread  at  this  time.  The  peculiar  steppe 
animal  is  the  horse.  The  characteristic  forest 
and  meadow  animals  are  the  deer  and  their 
allies;  the  wolf  and  bear;  the  wild  boar  and 
cattle  seem  to  be  at  home  in  forest  and  glade 
and  along  the  streams. 

1  See  Charts,  40:  41-43.    5.  Also  40:  45,  46;  412-427;  386. 


28  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

In  France,  where  there  was  far  less  glacia- 
tion,  the  succession  of  tundra,  steppe,  and  forest 
is  less  apparent.  Here  we  find  a  mingling  of 
varied  forms  which  have  come  in  from  very 
different  regions,  driven  from  their  original 
homes  by  change  of  climate  or  drawn  by  favor- 
able conditions. 

The  first  unmistakable  relic  of  man  in  Europe 
is  a  human  lower  jaw  found  in  the  Mauer  sands 
near  Heidelberg,  some  seventy-nine  feet  below 
the  surface  of  the  bluff.1  It  seems  to  belong  to 
the  second  or  Mindel-Riss  interglacial  epoch, 
and  its  age  is  estimated  by  Osborn  at  about 
250,000  years.  Remains  characteristic  of  the 
oldest  Paleolithic  epochs  occur  between  thirty 
and  forty -five  feet  below  the  surface.  If  we  are 
to  find  an  archaeological  name  for  this  epoch, 
there  seems  to  be  no  better  one  than  Eolithic, 
the  dawn  of  the  Stone  Age,  when  European  man 
had  hardly  more  than  begun  to  chip  a  stone  im- 
plement, although  we  must  recognize  the  un- 
readiness of  many  or  most  archaeologists  to  find 
a  place  for  such  rude  products.2 

The  third  interglacial  period  (Riss-Wurm)  and 
the  fourth  period  of  advance  (Wurm)  cover 
what  is  known  as  Lower  Paleolithic  time,  which 
is  the  earlier  four-fifths  or  more  of  the  Old  Stone 

140:95.     47.  2  D:  I,  380-412.     48. 


THE   COMING  OF  MAN  29 

Age  or  Paleolithic  period,  extending  approxi- 
mately from  125,000  B.  C,  to  25,000  B.  C. 
During  the  greater  part  of  this  period  Europe 
was  occupied  by  the  Neanderthaloid  people. 
Neanderthal  man  had  a  very  large  head  with 
heavy,  overhanging  eyebrows  meeting  above 
the  nose,  and  a  markedly  retreating  forehead. 
The  face  was  high  and  the  large  nasal  opening 
indicates  a  broad,  flat  nose.  The  lower  jaw  was 
heavy  and  the  chin  retreating.  The  trunk  was 
short,  thick,  and  robust,  the  shoulders  broad; 
the  limbs  short  and  heavy,  the  arms  and  lower 
legs  relatively  short,  and  the  hands  very  large. 
Although  the  much-discussed  Piltdown  skull 
may  quite  probably  be  regarded  as  belonging  to 
the  earliest  part  of  this  period,  the  finer  form  of 
cranium  seems  to  testify  to  a  higher  race  of 
better  mental  development  than  the  Neander- 
thaloids,  huddling  in  their  caves  and  shelters. 
It  may  easily  represent  a  far  more  progressive 
ancestral  race,  of  which  they  are  somewhat  de- 
generate descendants,  though  Osborn  dissents 
from  this  view.1 

Their  remains  are  found  in  caves  and  rock- 
shelters  all  over  Europe.  Here  we  find  their 
hearths;  the  bones  of  the  animals  which  they 
had  hunted  for  their  food;  their  almond-shaped 

1  40:  130,  244. 


30  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

flint  axes,  "hand-stones"  (Coups-de-Poing) ,  the 
scrapers  for  dressing  skins  and  shaving  wooden 
tools,  and  a  variety  of  other  forms.  Here  they 
buried  their  dead.  During  the  third  warm  in- 
terglacial  epoch  they  lived  in  the  open,  as  at  the 
station  of  Chelles,  which  has  given  its  name  to 
the  earliest  Paleolithic  epoch.1  Their  origin  and 
route  of  migration  is  quite  uncertain,  but  it 
seems  probable  that  they  entered  Europe  from 
the  southern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean. 

The  post-glacial  period  is  characterized  by 
the  final  retreat  of  the  ice.  The  change  of  cli- 
mate was  not  steady  but  marked  by  a  series  of 
oscillations,  repeating  on  a  much  smaller  scale 
the  glacial  and  interglacial  epochs  of  the  long 
past.  The  climatic  change  is  accompanied  by 
the  appearance  of  tundra  and  steppe,  followed 
by  meadows  and  the  forest  conditions  of  mod- 
ern times.  Game  was  abundant  and  general  con- 
ditions severe  but  healthy  and  fairly  favorable. 

A  new  race  has  appeared  on  the  scene  which 
replaced  the  Neanderthal  folk,  and  had  prac- 
tically none  of  their  primitive  or  degenerate, 
ape-like  characteristics.2  The  Cro-Magnon  peo- 
ple have  excited  the  wonder  and  admiration  of 
all  anthropologists.     They  were  of  tall  stature, 

iD:  I,  113.  240:  290,  316. 


THE   COMING  OF  MAN  31 

had  long  legs,  especially  below  the  knee,  giving 
swiftness  in  running.  The  forehead  is  broad 
and  of  good  height,  the  features  are  rugged  but 
attractive,  and  the  brain  is  very  large.  They 
seem  to  represent  a  new  race  and  new  immigra- 
tion, probably  from  Asia,  which  spread  over 
Europe. 

The  Cro-Magnon  brain  was  anything  but 
dull.  In  this  remote  time,  more  than  20,000 
years  ago,  there  sprang  up  an  art  never  since 
surpassed  in  its  own  field  except,  perhaps,  by 
that  of  the  Greeks.  Their  bone  implements  are 
adorned  with  the  most  lifelike  carvings  or  sculp- 
tures. On  the  walls  of  caves  we  find  paintings 
as  realistic  and  alive,  and  often  as  finely  exe- 
cuted in  detail  and  coloring,  as  the  best  animal 
painters  of  our  day  could  produce.  These  peo- 
ple must  have  had  a  high  and  keen  appreciation 
of  the  beauty  of  form  and  proportion.  All  this 
artistic  movement  must  have  had  its  source  in 
new  ideas  and  conditions,  springing  from  a 
thinking  as  well  as  a  feeling  and  observing  mind. 
They  also  frequently  buried  their  dead,  deco- 
rated with  strings  of  perforated  shells,  and  sur- 
rounded by  flints  or  sometimes  by  a  layer  of  red 
earth  or  ore.  With  them  were  the  bones  of  food 
animals  and  the  flint  weapons  needed  for  the 
journey  into  or  use  in  the  life  beyond. 


32  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

The  life  of  the  Cro-Magnon  hunters  on  their 
arrival  in  Europe  was  anything  but  unendurable, 
especially  along  the  Riviera.  There  were  open- 
air  encampments  where  men  passed  at  least  the 
summer  months  in  tents  or  huts.  The  race 
seems  to  have  culminated  during  the  cold  mid- 
dle Magdalenian  epoch,  which  indicates  that 
they  were  well  adapted  to  its  conditions.  Game 
was  abundant  and  relatively  easily  captured. 
They  had  food  and  raiment,  fair  shelter,  excel- 
lent art,  alert  brains,  and  probably  a  fair  degree 
of  social  life.  They  may  well  have  been  con- 
tent, courageous,  and  full  of  hope  for  themselves 
and  their  descendants. 

Upper  Paleolithic  time,  beginning  with  the 
arrival  of  the  Cro-Magnons,  about  25,000  years 
ago,  is  divided  into  four  epochs,  or,  better,  four 
culture-stages:  Aurignacian,  Solutrean,  Magda- 
lenian, and  Azilian-Tardenoisian.  Even  in  late 
Magdalenian  days,  after  a  cold  and  dry  interval 
accompanied  by  steppe  conditions  and  a  new 
formation  of  loess,  the  air  became  moister  and 
the  temperature  gradually  moderated  until  it 
became  much  like  that  of  to-day.  Tundra  and 
steppe  animals  became  more  rare;  a  forest  and 
meadow  fauna  took  possession  of  Europe.  In- 
stead of  the  reindeer  we  find  stag  and  roe-deer, 
cattle,  wild  boar,  bears  and  wolves,  beaver  and 
otter.     These  were  less  easily  hunted  and  prob- 


HUMAN  FIGURES,  SPAIN— EARLY  NEOLITHIC 


DRAWINGS  OF  ANIMALS  (CRO-MAGNON)  FROM  ALTAMIRA 


THE   COMING   OF  MAN  33 

ably  less  abundant  than  the  reindeer  and  horse 
had  been.  As  hunting  became  less  profitable, 
fishing  grew  more  attractive.  The  streams  prob- 
ably swarmed  with  fish,  and  the  salmon  was 
probably  as  abundant  throughout  northern 
Europe  as  in  Scandinavia  to-day.  A  change  of 
life  is  suggested  by  the  implements.  The  har- 
poons became  ruder.  The  beautifully  flaked 
lance-heads  and  the  smoothed  bone  daggers  give 
place  to  small  flints,  "microliths,"  less  fitted  for 
attacking  large  and  dangerous  animals.  The 
country  seems  to  have  supported  a  smaller  and 
decreasing  population.  Cro-Magnon  man  had 
always  been  a  reindeer  hunter,  accustomed  and 
well  adapted  to  the  life  and  conditions  of  tun- 
dra or  steppe.  The  changes  were  not  in  his 
favor  or  to  his  liking.  Many  probably  left 
France  and  Germany.  Those  who  remained 
deserted  the  rock-shelters  and  cave-mouths, 
where  every  spring  the  water  seeping  down  and 
dripping  through  the  roof  dislodged  masses  of 
stone.1  The  shelter  was  less  needed.  Men 
dwelt  more  in  the  open,  and  fewer  records  of 
their  presence  were  preserved. 

But  Europe  was  not  deserted.  There  was  no 
"hiatus."  Other  peoples  were  coming  in,  per- 
haps better  suited  to  the  new  conditions,  prob- 
ably mostly  of  Asiatic  origin.     Broad-heads,  as 

1E:  110-117. 


34  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

well  as  new  long-heads,  appear,  less  attractive 
physically  and  mentally,  but  apparently  of 
tougher  fibre  and  greater  staying  power  than  our 
more  striking  and  charming  Cro-Magnons.1  A 
new  grand  mingling  of  peoples  had  already  be- 
gun or  was  in  its  last  stages  of  preparation  al- 
ready advancing  from  afar  in  successive  waves. 
In  Italy  genuine  Neolithic  culture  may  already 
have  been  introduced.  It  steals  very  slowly  into 
northern  Europe  and  overspreads  it.  The  Cro- 
Magnon  race  generally  migrated  or  died  out, 
but  left  its  traces  in  the  physical  characters  of 
the  people  of  Dordogne  and  elsewhere. 

The  Azilian-Tardenoisian  epoch  leads  over  to 
the  Neolithic,  our  chief  object  of  study.  Its 
relative  position  in  prehistoric  time  is  shown  in 
the  following  scheme: 

A.  Eolithic  Period.  Stone  implements  ex- 
ceedingly rude,  hardly  recognizable  as  artificially 
chipped;  otherwise  like  B. 

B.  Paleolithic  Period.  Stone  implements 
chipped  or  flaked,  never  polished.  No  domesti- 
cated plants  or  animals.  No  pottery.  Man  a 
collector  or  hunter,  more  rarely  a  fisherman. 

C.  Transition  Period,  resembling  B  in  most 
respects. 

[Ay  B,  and  C  make  up  the  Old  Stone  Age, 
before  the  use  of  metals.] 

MO:  475-500. 


THE  COMING  OF  MAN  35 

D.  Neolithic  Period.  Some  stone  implements 
polished.  No  metal  except  that  copper  is  in- 
troduced toward  the  end  of  the  period.  Agri- 
culture with  domestic  plants  and  animals.  Pot- 
tery but  no  potter's  wheel.  Dawn  of  Civiliza- 
tion. 

E.  Bronze  Period.  Bronze  implements  or 
utensils.  Dawn  of  History.  Begins  about  2500 
B.  C.  in  northern  Europe. 

F.  Iron  Period.  Iron  introduced.  Historic 
Times.  Begins  about  1000  B.  C.  in  northern 
Europe. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION.    SHELL-HEAPS 

DURING  the  last  great  advance  of  the 
ice  in  the  earlier  Magdalenian  epoch 
the  Scandinavian  peninsula  had  been 
buried  beneath  a  great  mass  of  ice,  and  resem- 
bled the  central  portion  of  Greenland  to-day. 
A  great  glacier  extended  southward,  obliterating 
the  Baltic  Sea  and  crowding  into  northern  Ger- 
many. As  the  glaciers  withdrew,  North  Ger- 
many became  a  vast  tundra,  across  which  we 
may  imagine  the  reindeer  and  other  Arctic  and 
subarctic  mammals  retreating  northeastward 
before  the  milder  forest  and  meadow  conditions 
already  prevailing  in  France  and  Russia.1  The 
low  temperature  of  the  water  of  the  emerging 
Baltic  is  shown  by  the  presence  of  an  arctic 
bivalve,  Yoldia  arctica,  which  has  given  its  name 
to  the  epoch.  A  few  scattered  bone  implements 
show  the  presence  of  reindeer  hunters  in  Ger- 
many at  this  time. 

Before  the  close  of  the  Yoldia  period  Germany 
began  to  pass  from  tundra  to  forest  —  a  trans- 
formation which  was  also  now  progressing  in 
Denmark.    The  temperature  moderated  slowly. 

JD:  466,476;  40:  281. 
36 


THE  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION     37 

The  land  rose  in  such  a  way  that  it  separated 
the  Baltic  from  the  North  Sea  and  the  Arctic 
Ocean,  with  which  it  had  been  connected,  and 
made  of  it  a  great  fresh -water  lake.  The  char- 
acteristic animal  of  this  lake  was  a  small  pond 
animal,  ancylus,  which  has  given  its  name  to 
both  lake  and  epoch. 

The  next  epoch  —  the  Litorina  (or  Tapes) 
depression  —  was  characterized  by  a  sinking  of 
the  land  in  which  the  barrier  between  the  Bal- 
tic and  the  North  Seas  gave  place  to  a  wide  com- 
munication. The  Baltic  became  more  salt  than 
at  present,  and  the  oyster-banks  became  abun- 
dant. It  was  during  this  epoch  that  the  shell- 
heaps  were  accumulated. 

The  following  chart  gives  a  condensed  view 
of  the  succession  of  events  (in  reverse  order):1 


WESTERN  AND  MIDDLE 

NORTHERN  EUROPE 

DATE 

EUROPE 

B.  c. 

4.  Typical  Neolithic. 

Typical  Neolithic. 

6000- 

Beech  and  fir  forests. 

2500 

3.  Daun  Stage. 

Litorina  Epoch.     Oak  for- 
ests.    Northern  climatic 

optimum. 

8000 

Campignian. 

Shell-heaps. 

2.  Gschnitz  Stage. 

Ancylus  Epoch.     Birch  and 

pine  forests. 

10,000 

Azilian-Tardenoisian. 

Magelmose. 

1.  Biihl  Stage. 

Yoldia     Epoch.    Swedish- 

Finnish  Moraines. 

16,000 

Magdalenian  (later). 

Tundra.     Dryas  Flora. 

»D:  466,  476;  40:281. 


/^fW*^ 


38  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

The  growth  and  succession  of  the  forests  of 
Denmark,  accompanying  changes  in  conditions 
of  soil  and  climate,  have  been  clearly  traced  by 
Steenstrup.1  The  scene  of  his  investigations 
was  a  moraine  country  broken  by  low  ranges  of 
hills  in  the  island  of  Zealand,  north  of  Copen- 
hagen. The  hills  are  often  strewn  with  erratic 
blocks  of  rock  brought  by  glaciers,  with  here 
and  there  small  lakes,  ponds,  or  peat-bogs  often 
giving  place  to  meadow  or  forest. 

Some  of  these  depressions  are  filled  with  a 
poor  variety  of  peat,  dug  for  fuel,  and  the  sides 
are  often  abrupt,  steep,  and  deep.  These  sides 
furnish  a  calendar  by  showing  the  different  lay- 
ers which  have  been  formed  by  successive  gen- 
erations of  tree-growth  falling  into  the  bog. 
Thus,  in  the  upper  layers  we  find  remains  of 
trees  which  still  flourish  in  Denmark,  while  the 
deepest  strata  contain  the  remains  of  reindeer. 
The  thickness  of  these  layers  is  between  five 
and  seven  metres.  Their  formation,  according 
to  Steenstrup,  occupied  10,000  to  12,000  years.1 

The  following  layers  are  found  in  these  "cal- 
endars," beginning  at  the  surface: 

1.  Surface  layer.  Remains  of  the  beech, 
which  furnishes  the  chief  beauty  of  the  forests 
of  Denmark  to-day. 

'C::225;  60. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION     39 

2.  Oak.  The  beginning  of  this  layer  was  con- 
temporary with  the  Litorina  depression. 

3.  Scotch  pine  (pinus  sylvestris).  The  earli- 
est pines  were  dwarfed,  the  trunks  showing  as 
many  as  seventy  rings  to  the  inch.  In  upper 
strata  their  trunks  were  a  metre  or  so  in  diameter. 
In  the  Lillemose  moor,  near  Rudesdal,  the  whole 
eastern  side,  twenty  metres  deep,  was  filled 
with  pines.  While  no  human  remains  have  been 
found  in  these  moors,  a  stone  axe  embedded  in  a 
pine  trunk,  and  a  stone  arrow-head  in  a  bone 
of  the  bos  primigenius  (which,  like  the  auerhahn 
or  pine  partridge  lived  on  the  young  pine  shoots) 
have  been  discovered.  The  soil  best  adapted  to 
the  pine  is  a  damp  soil,  poor  in  humus,  whereas 
the  present  rich,  fertile  soil  of  Denmark  is  best 
suited  to  the  beech.  This  explains  the  fact 
that  pine  forests  no  longer  grow  there. 

4.  At  the  bottom,  poplars  and  aspens.  The 
clay  underlying  the  pines  and  poplars  contains 
leaves  of  arctic  willows  and  saxifrages. 

Through  these  types  of  strata  we  may  trace 
the  epochs  described  at  the  beginning  of  the 
chapter.  The  pine  characterizes  the  Azilian- 
Tardenoisian-Ancylus  Epoch ;  at  the  time  of  the 
Litorina  depression  it  was  fast  giving  place  to 
the  oak,  which  remains  characteristic  of  the 
Neolithic  and  Bronze  periods,  yielding  to  the 


■40  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

beech  during  the  Iron  Age.  But  this  advance 
must  have  been  gradual  and  the  boundary  of 
advance  irregular. 

Blytt  has  traced  a  very  similar  succession  of 
changes  in  flora  and  climate  in  southern  Norway, 
and  Geikie  in  Scotland.1  These  changes  are 
very  important  in  our  study  of  the  traces  of 
man's  first  appearance  in  Denmark  as  furnish- 
ing not  only  their  setting  but  also  their  chro- 
nology. 

Shell-heaps  are  found  all  over  the  world  in 
favorable  sheltered  localities  where  sea  food  is 
abundant,  especially  near  clam  flats.  Hence 
they  are  not  characteristic  of  any  one  race  or 
time.  Some  are  very  ancient,  some  compara- 
tively or  very  modern.  They  merely  show  the 
remains  of  the  camping-grounds  of  people  in  a 
low  stage  of  culture.  Every  one  has  its  own 
history  and  its  own  slight  or  marked  peculiarities. 

The  Danish  shell-heaps  or  kitchen-middens 
are  mounds  generally  about  fifty  metres  wide 
and  one  hundred  metres  long,  and  perhaps  one 
metre  in  thickness.  But,  as  we  should  naturally 
expect,  the  size  varies  greatly  according  to  the 
advantages  of  the  situation,  the  number  of  in- 
habitants, and  the  length  of  time  that  it  was 
inhabited. 

1  42:  270. 


SHELL-HEAP 


SHELL-HEAP  AXE 


SHELL-HEAP  JAR 


THE  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION     41 

The  age  of  these  shell -heaps  is  shown  approxi- 
mately by  the  presence  of  the  auerhahn,  prov- 
ing the  neighborhood  of  pine  forests.  The  char- 
coal in  the  fireplaces  came  from  oak  wood, 
showing  that  oak  forests  are  overspreading  the 
country.  The  Baltic  was  more  salt  than  at 
present,  and  the  shore  line  was  depressed. 
These  facts  indicate  a  period  of  transition  from 
the  Ancylus  to  the  Litorina  Epoch.  The  stone 
implements  resemble  those  of  western  Europe 
during  the  late  transition  epoch,  and  do  not 
occur  in  the  oldest  graves.  There  are  no  domes- 
tic animals  except  the  dog,  and  no  cultivated 
plants  except  some  wheat  in  the  later  remains. 
All  this  seems  to  prove  that  genuine  Neolithic 
culture  had  not  yet  reached  the  shores  of  the 
Baltic.  They  are  composed  mostly  of  oyster 
shells  with  a  mingling  of  those  of  scallops,  mus- 
sels, and  periwinkles.  The  oyster  has  now  dis- 
appeared from  large  parts  of  the  coast  and  in 
others  has  decreased  in  size.  Land  elevation 
has  narrowed  the  connection  of  the  Baltic  with 
the  North  Sea,  and  the  water  contains  less  salt. 

Remains  of  cod  and  herring  show  that  the 
fishermen  who  lived  on  or  near  these  harbors 
ventured  out  to  sea  in  dugouts  or  on  rafts,  and 
that  they  must  have  made  lines  for  fishing  in 
fairly  deeD  water.     Remains  of  other  fish  oc- 


42  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

cur.  Bones  of  birds  are  often  very  abundant, 
especially  swamp,  shore,  and  swimming  species; 
wild  geese  and  ducks,  swans  and  gulls,  the  Alca 
impennis  or  wingless  auk,  now  extinct.  The 
blackcock,  or  "spruce  (pine)  partridge,"  was 
then  common,  but  has  now  disappeared  from 
Denmark  with  the  pine  whose  buds  formed  a 
large  part  of  its  food. 

Bones  of  stag,  deer,  and  wild  boar  form,  ac- 
cording to  Steenstrup,  97  per  cent  of  all  those 
of  mammals  found  at  Havelse.1  Bones  of  seal, 
otter,  wolf,  fox,  bear,  beaver,  and  wildcat  also 
occur.  There  are  no  traces  of  reindeer  or  musk- 
ox.  These  animals  had  already  migrated  or 
died  out.  Steenstrup  noticed  that  the  long 
bones  of  birds  are  about  twenty  times  as  numer- 
ous as  others  of  their  skeletons,  and  that  the 
heads  or  ends  of  the  long  bones  of  mammals  are 
generally  missing.  These  were  exactly  the  parts 
which  are  gnawed  by  dogs,  whose  remains  also 
occur.  Hence  he  drew  the  inference,  now  uni- 
versally accepted,  that  the  dog  was  domesti- 
cated in  Denmark  at  this  time.  It  was  a  small 
species,  apparently  akin  to  the  jackal  and  of 
southeastern  origin.  No  remains  of  other  do- 
mesticated animals  have  been  found,  nor  of 
cultivated  plants,  except  a  few  casts  of  grains 

XL:  235. 


THE  PERIOD   OF  TRANSITION     43 

of  wheat  in  the  pottery  of  the  upper  layers  of 
some  of  the  heaps. 

Daggers,  awls,  and  needles  were  made  of 
bone;  also  combs  apparently  used  for  stretch- 
ing sinews  into  long  threads.  The  flint  imple- 
ments are  rudely  chipped,  never  polished.  We 
find  long  flakes  used  as  knives,  and  numerous 
scrapers  and  borers.1  The  axe,  if  we  may  call 
it  so,  was  of  peculiar  form,  approaching  the  tri- 
angular and  looking  as  if  made  out  of  a  circular 
disk  of  flint  by  breaking  away  two  sides  of  the 
periphery,  leaving  a  somewhat  flaring  cutting 
edge.  The  middle  was  thick,  the  edge  tapered 
somewhat  rapidly,  making  a  rough  but  quite 
durable  instrument.  Longer  implements  in  the 
form  of  chisels  or  picks  were  also  roughly  flaked 
with  skilfully  retouched  edges,  often  with  one 
end  narrowed  or  bluntly  pointed.  In  all  cases 
the  work  is  very  rude  compared  with  the  best 
specimens  of  Paleolithic  time.  Arrow-heads  are 
common,  usually  with  a  broad  edge  instead  of 
a  point,  well  suited  to  killing  birds  and  small 
mammals.  The  bone  harpoon  seems  to  have 
gone  out  of  use. 

The  pottery  is  thick,  heavy,  crude,  with  prac- 
tically no  ornament,  except  finger-prints  around 
the  upper  edge.     The  jars   are   sometimes  of 

1A:  329. 


44  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

large  size;  often  the  base  is  pointed  instead  of 
flat  or  rounded.  Hearths  of  calcined  stones 
are  abundant.  Sometimes  these  are  surrounded 
by  circular  depressions  in  the  heaps,  which  may 
mark  the  form  and  position  of  huts  or  shelters; 
or  these  may  have  been  placed  under  the  lee  of 
the  near-by  forests.  No  graves  or  human  re- 
mains of  this  period  have  been  found. 

Shell-heaps  quite  similar  to  those  of  Den- 
mark were  discovered  at  Mugem,  in  Portugal, 
in  the  valley  of  the  Tagus,  twenty-five  to  thirty 
metres  above  sea-level,  and  thirty  to  forty  miles 
from  the  mouth  of  the  river.  The  shells  are  of 
marine  origin,  and  indicate  a  considerable  ele- 
vation of  land  since  their  accumulation.  The 
stone  implements  are  very  primitive  and  of 
Azilian-Tardenoisian  type.  Large  flat  stones, 
perhaps  for  grinding,  perhaps  for  dressing  skins, 
occur.  Pottery  occurs  only  in  the  upper  layers, 
where  the  bones  of  mammals  increase  in  number. 
There  are  no  polished  implements,  no  traces  of 
domesticated  animals,  not  even  of  the  tame  dog. 
Graves  were  found  here  and  there;  and  while 
the  skulls  were  badly  contorted,  they  seemed  to 
show  that  the  inhabitants  were  partly  long- 
headed, partly  broad -heads.  Remains,  appar- 
ently of  the  same  age,  have  been  found  in  Great 
Britain. 


THE  PERIOD   OF  TRANSITION     45 

Even  the  Danish  shell-heaps  are  not  all  of  the 
same  age.  According  to  Forrer,  Havno  is  an- 
cient; Ertebolle  is  also  old,  but  was  long  inhab- 
ited, and  some  of  its  uppermost  layers  may  be 
full  Neolithic;  Aalborg  and  others  are  younger. 
Mugem  strikes  us  as  more  ancient  than  the  sim- 
ilar Danish  remains.  Other  remains  near  the 
Baltic  suggest  very  strongly  quite  marked  dif- 
ferences in  age  or  in  the  culture  of  their  inhabi- 
tants, or  in  both  these  respects.  We  can  notice 
only  two  of  these. 

Maglemose  lies  on  the  west  coast  of  Zealand 
near  the  harbor  of  Mullerup.  Here  a  peat-bog 
has  encroached  upon  a  fresh-water  lake  and 
has  covered  a  mud  bottom  strewn  with  shells 
of  pond-snails  and  mussels.  Pines  had  grown 
in  the  swamp,  and  their  stumps  still  protrude 
into  or  above  the  moss.  The  implements  were 
found  a  little  above  the  old  lake  bottom  between 
seventy  centimetres  and  one  metre  below  the 
surface  of  the  peat.  The  remains  of  the  settle- 
ment were  distributed  over  an  area  about  one 
hundred  feet  long  and  broad.  The  charred  or 
burned  wood  was  very  largely  (eighty  per  cent) 
pine,  ten  per  cent  hazel,  a  little  elm  and  poplar. 
No  oak  was  found  here,  but  oak-pollen  grains 
were  found  in  the  same  level  as  the  settlement, 
or  slightly  higher  and  later.     Flint  cracked  by 


46  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

heat  and  charred  fragments  of  wood  were  found, 
but  no  definite  hearths.  Bones  of  fresh-water 
fish  and  of  swamp  turtles  occur.  The  shore 
could  not  have  been  very  distant  even  if  it 
stood  considerably  higher,  but  no  bones  of 
marine  fish  have  been  found.  Many  birds  were 
hunted.  The  mammals  include  boar,  deer,  stag, 
and  urus.  The  dog  is  the  only  domesticated 
animal. 

Flint  chips  are  abundant  at  Maglemose;  long 
knife-flakes  and  axes  are  rare.  Scrapers  and 
nuclei  are  numerous.  The  arrow-heads  are  long 
and  pointed  instead  of  broad  and  edged,  as  in 
the  usual  Danish  shell-heap.  Many  of  these 
so-called  arrow-heads  may  have  been  nothing 
more  than  inicroliths  used  for  a  great  variety  of 
purposes.  No  flint  implements  or  fragments 
show  any  trace  of  polishing.  Bone  implements 
are  numerous.  We  find  rude  harpoons  of  a  very 
late  Magdalenian  type.  Also,  some  of  the  bone 
implements  are  ornamented  with  various  pat- 
terns of  incised  lines,  and  even  one  or  two  rude 
drawings  of  animals  occur.  The  culture  evi- 
dently differs  quite  markedly  from  that  of  the 
ordinary  shell-heaps.  It  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  the  mud  of  the  lake  bottom  and  the  over- 
lying peat  were  continuous  over  and  around  the 
whole  area  of  the  settlement;    there  is  no  sign 


THE  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION     47 

of  any  island  at  this  point  and  the  settlement 
was  some  350  metres  from  the  original  shore  of 
the  lake.  There  are  abundant  traces  of  fire  but 
no  hearths.  No  traces  of  piles  have  been  dis- 
covered. All  this  seems  to  corroborate  Sarauw's 
view  that  the  people  lived  on  a  raft  all  the  year 
round.  Sarauw  considers  the  remains  as  of  the 
same  age  as  the  oldest  shell-heaps.  But  there 
is  a  wide-spread  tendency  to  consider  Magle- 
mose  as  considerably  older,  belonging  probably 
to  the  close  of  the  Ancylus  Epoch. 

Virchow  has  described  a  heap  composed  of 
mussel-shells  on  the  outlet  of  Burtnecker  Lake, 
east  of  Riga,  called  Rinnekalns.1  Its  most  in- 
teresting feature  is  its  pottery  made  of  clay 
mixed  with  powdered  mussel-shells,  giving  it  a 
peculiar  glitter.  It  is  ornamented  with  lines 
arranged  in  an  angular  geometrical  pattern  en- 
circling the  vessel.  Similar  pottery  can  be  fol- 
lowed far  southward  into  Russia  and  westward 
as  far  as  East  Prussia,  but  not  farther  into  Ger- 
many. Bored  teeth  used  for  ornaments  occur. 
Bone  implements  are  numerous,  often  orna- 
mented with  fine  lines  in  zigzag  or  network. 
We  find  harpoons  also.  The  flint  industry  was 
poorly  and  sparingly  developed.  Graves  were 
discovered,  but  their  contents  proved  that  they 
belonged  to  a  much  later  period. 

»63. 


48  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

The  culture  is  peculiar,  paralleled  to  a  certain 
extent  but  not  repeated  in  western  Europe. 
We  still  seem  to  detect  the  influence  of  a  de- 
cadent, late  Magdalenian  style  of  ornament. 
Virchow  considered  them  as  very  late  Paleo- 
lithic or  very  early  Neolithic. 

The  shell-heaps  of  different  regions  resemble 
one  another  in  general  features,  but  differ  and 
show  their  individuality  in  details  of  culture. 
These  peculiarities  may  be  due  to  difference  of 
age  or  of  culture  or  population,  or  to  both.  We 
must  first  attempt  to  find  some  place  for  them 
in  the  chronological  succession  discovered  in 
France.  They  cannot  be  much  older  than  the 
French  period  of  transition,  when  Scandinavia 
first  became  habitable.  But  good  cave-series 
covering  the  transition  epoch  are  rare,  and 
usually  very  incomplete.  In  1887  Piette  found 
a  remarkable  series  in  a  cave  or  natural  tunnel 
at  Mas  d'Azil,  near  Toulouse.1  The  most  im- 
portant strata  were  the  following: 

1.  A  dark  layer  evidently  Magdalenian. 

2.  A  yellow  layer  deposited  by  river  floods. 

3.  Dark  Magdalenian  layer,  with  reindeer 
harpoons,  engravings,  and  sculptures.  Reindeer 
becoming  rare;  stag  increasing. 

4.  Barren  yellow  layer,  like  2. 

MO:  459;  A:  I,  314;  D:  213. 


THE   PERIOD   OF  TRANSITION     49 

5.  Reddish  layer  (Azilian).  No  reindeer. 
Stag  abundant.  Flints  nearly  all  of  Magda- 
lenian  types.  Flattened  stag-horn  harpoons 
perforated  at  base.  Bone  points  and  smoothers. 
Pointed  flat  pebbles.  Bones  of  stag,  bear,  boar, 
wildcat,  beaver. 

6.  Bones  of  wild  boar,  stag,  horse.  Flints 
similar  to  those  in  5.  Beginnings  of  pottery  and 
of  polishing;  but  not  of  polished  axes.  Piette's 
Arisian.     Beginning  of  Neolithic. 

7.  Neolithic  and  Bronze  remains. 

Layer  5  evidently  represents  a  period  pos- 
terior to  the  Magdalenian  and  anterior  to  the 
real  Neolithic.  Hence  Piette  considered  it  as 
marking  a  distinct  Azilian  Epoch,  resembling  the 
Magdalenian  in  most  of  its  flint  implements,  in 
the  absence  of  pottery  and  of  polished  axes. 
But  the  reindeer  has  here  given  place  to  the 
stag,  and  the  harpoon  has  changed  correspond- 
ingly and  is  less  skilfully  made.  Bone  imple- 
ments are  decadent. 

Another  culture,  the  Tardenoisian,  was  of  ex- 
ceedingly wide  range.  It  took  its  name  from 
Fere-en-Tardenois,  Department  of  Aisne,  north- 
east of  Paris,  and  was  characterized  by  its  very 
small  "pygmy"  flints  of  various,  usually  geo- 
metric forms.1     This  microlithic  industry  was 

MO:  465. 


50  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

found  in  France,  Belgium,  England,  Germany, 
Russia,  and  along  the  southern  shore  of  the 
Mediterranean.  The  culture  was  well  repre- 
resented  along  rivers  and  inlets,  and  seemed 
to  characterize  a  fishing  rather  than  hunting 
folk. 

In  1909  Breuil  and  Obermaier  found  in  the 
grotto  of  Valle,  in  northern  Spain,  a  classic 
Azilian  deposit,  forming  the  lower  levels  of  a 
series  rich  in  these  microliths  or  pygmy  flints. 
The  Azilian  was  more  nearly  a  continuation  of 
the  Magdalenian  culture,  while  the  Tardenoi- 
sian,  in  France,  seemed  to  be  an  importation 
from  the  Mediterranean  region.  Since  the  two 
were  so  closely  related  in  point  of  time  it  seemed 
safe  and  wise  to  combine  the  two  names  and 
call  the  epoch  the  Azilian-Tardenoisian,  the 
Azilian  representing  the  older  portion. 

The  station  of  Campigny,  on  the  lower  Seine, 
seems  to  be  somewhat  later  than  the  Azilian- 
Tardenoisian.1  Here,  in  a  pit  oval  in  outline, 
with  a  long  diameter  of  4.30  metres,  evidently 
an  ancient  dwelling,  there  were  found  bits  of 
pottery,  utensils  of  older  stone  epochs,  no  pol- 
ished implements,  but  the  tranchet  or  axe  and 
the  pick  (pic)  characteristic  of  the  Danish  shell- 
heaps.     These  Campignian  remains  are  hardly 

1  A:  I,  326. 


t 


THE  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION     51 

widely  enough  diffused  or  sufficiently  definite 
to  give  name  to  a  distinct  epoch.  They  may 
well  be  nearly  contemporaneous  with  the  (older  ?) 
shell-heaps. 

The  whole  transition  epoch,  which  we  have 
hastily  surveyed,  shows  us  a  series  or  mixture 
of  disconnected  cultures,  yet  with  curious  and 
striking  interrelations.  This  may  be  partly  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  population  of  Europe  was 
diminished  and  scattered.  Little  groups  of  peo- 
ple formed  more  or  less  isolated  communities, 
and  developed  their  own  special  peculiarities 
according  to  situation,  needs,  and  opportuni- 
ties. Connecting  links,  or  intermediate  cultures, 
which  may  once  have  existed,  have  been  com- 
pletely lost  or  still  remain  to  be  discovered. 
The  general  desertion  of  the  caves  destroyed 
one  of  our  best  sources  of  continuous  records. 

But  the  cause  of  this  diversity  lies  deeper. 
New  cultures  and  new  waves  of  migration  of 
peoples  were  pouring  into  Europe,  especially 
into  the  Baltic  region  now  left  free  of  ice,  en- 
joying a  mild  climate,  and  offering  an  abun- 
dance of  food  along  the  shores  of  its  rivers, 
lakes,  and  seas.  The  Tardenoisian  culture  had 
spread  northward  from  the  Mediterranean.  The 
broad-headed  people  of  Furfooz,  Grenelle,  and 
Ofret  had  apparently  crossed  Europe  from  the 


52  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

east  and  had  settled  in  a  long  zone  extending 
northward  and  southward  through  Belgium  and 
France  and  probably  southward  into  Spain,  for 
we  remember  the  broad-heads  found  at  Mugem, 
in  Portugal.  But  their  distribution  was  far 
wider  than  this  strip  of  territory.  New  Neo- 
lithic types  of  culture  had  already  entered  Italy, 
perhaps  as  early  as  Magdalenian  times.  Series 
of  waves  appear  to  have  passed  into  Poland, 
Russia,  and  Siberia,  and  to  have  moved  north- 
ward until  they  reached  the  coast  in  Scandinavia 
and  to  the  eastward.  In  all  these  cases  we  may 
probably  imagine  a  gradual  and  perhaps  slow 
infiltration  or  "seeping"  in  of  the  new  popula- 
tion rather  than  an  invasion  in  crowds  or  masses, 
such  as  we  are  likely  to  imagine.  Vast  stretches 
of  habitable  land  had  been  newly  opened,  and 
there  was  plenty  of  room  for  all  comers.  In 
many  regions  the  old  population  may  have  re- 
mained comparatively  undisturbed  until  a  much 
later  date.  But  even  they  slowly  came  under 
the  influence  of  the  new  and  improved  technique 
and  mode  of  life.  All  this  collision  of  culture 
and  conflict  of  peoples  meant  stimuli,  awaken- 
ing, the  jogging  of  dull  minds,  a  veritable  spur 
of  necessity.  A  new  day  was  beginning  to  break. 
The  dawn  was  dim  and  cloudy,  but  there  was 
the  possibility  and  prospect  of  clear  shining. 


CHAPTER  III 
LAND  HABITATIONS 

OUR  history  of  Paleolithic  times  is  drawn 
very  largely  from  the  successive  strata 
of  remains  found  in  rock-shelters  and 
near  the  mouths  of  caves,  where  the  succession 
of  epochs  is  clear  and  indubitable.  We  natur- 
ally look  for  similar  reliable  testimony  concern- 
ing the  chronological  succession  of  Neolithic 
utensils,  pottery  and  other  remains.  Here, 
however,  we  have  been  disappointed  to  a  large 
degree.  Paleolithic  layers  were  generally  or 
frequently  overlaid  by  beds  of  stalagmite  or 
fallen  rocks,  which  have  saved  them  from  dis- 
turbance. But  the  Neolithic  and  Bronze  layers 
are  superficial,  usually  of  no  great  thickness; 
they  have  been  less  solidified  and  protected,  and 
far  more  exposed  to  the  disturbing  work  of  bur- 
rowing mammals  and  of  men  digging  for  buried 
treasures.  These  circumstances,  combined  with 
far  less  continuity  of  occupation,  have  greatly 
diminished  the  chronological  value  of  their 
study. 

Neolithic   cave  remains   occur   in   somewhat 
limited  areas  scattered  all  over  Europe.1     They 

[C:  258. 
53 


54  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

have  been  studied  in  England,  France,  Spain, 
Austria,  and  Germany  in  at  least  fairly  large 
numbers.  In  Austria  the  cave  province  extends 
through  Galicia,  Moravia,  and  Bohemia.  Here 
we  find  primitive  pottery;  rude  stone  and  nu- 
merous bone  implements;  domesticated  cattle, 
goats,  and  pigs.  Game  was  evidently  very 
abundant.  The  cave-dwellers,  apparently,  were 
pioneers  in  the  less  habitable  regions,  living 
mostly  by  hunting  and  fishing,  from  the  increase 
and  products  of  their  herds,  and  from  agricul- 
ture to  a  far  less  degree.  The  pottery  and  im- 
plements remind  us  somewhat  of  those  of  the 
earliest  lake-dwellings.  But  we  often  find  bits 
of  copper  and  bronze,  suggesting  a  later  date  or 
a  series  of  inhabitants  whose  relics  have  become 
much  mixed.  It  would  not  be  at  all  surprising 
if  primitive  manufactures  had  remained  here 
longer  in  use  than  in  less  isolated  regions.  A 
deposit  of  quite  similar  general  character  has 
been  found  at  Duino,  near  Monfalcone,  at  the 
head  of  the  Gulf  of  Trieste. 

A  second  province  lies  in  Bavaria,  between 
Bamberg  and  Baireuth.  Hoernes  considers  its 
remains  as  also  of  the  same  age  as  the  oldest  lake- 
dwellings,  but  with  peculiarities  due  to  the  dif- 
ferent geographical  conditions.  The  cave  prov- 
inces of  other  countries  are  equally  interesting. 


LAND  HABITATIONS  55 

Every  one  has  its  own  features  and  problems. 
We  would  naturally  expect  that  these  cave- 
dwellers  would  represent  the  least  progressive 
and  prosperous  members  of  the  population  of 
any  country.  In  our  general  survey  we  can 
afford  to  give  them  only  a  hasty  glance.  We  can 
easily  understand  that  where  chalk  or  other  soft 
rock  occurred  artificial  grottos  were  often  ex- 
cavated.1 

Remains  of  dwellings  are  common  all  over 
Europe,  and  are  likely  to  be  uncovered  wherever 
excavations  are  made  in  grading  or  for  the 
foundations  of  buildings.  They  are  of  two 
forms :  the  rectangular  house  and  the  round  hut. 
The  rectangular  form  is  the  rule  in  the  lake- 
dwellings,  though  with  exceptions;  on  the  land 
the  reverse  is  true.  The  pit-dwelling  at  Cam- 
pigny  was  elliptical  in  form  with  a  longest  di- 
ameter of  4.30  metres.  We  remember  that  the 
settlement  at  Campigny  is  probably  little,  if  at 
all,  younger  than  the  shell-heaps.  But  by  far  the 
commoner  form  of  pit-dwelling  is  circular,  with  a 
diameter  rarely  exceeding  two  metres.  Such 
small  circular  pits  are  exceedingly  common.  At 
the  bottom  we  find  ashes,  bones  of  animals,  im- 
plements, and  fragments  of  clay  once  forming 
a  part  of  the  superstructure,  baked  hard  when 

»76. 


56  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

the  hut  was  burned,  and  still  having  marks  of 
the  twigs  and  branches  over  which  the  clay  had 
been  plastered.  We  picture  to  ourselves  the 
hut  as  mostly  underground,  with  a  diameter 
usually  not  exceeding  one  and  one-half  to  two 
metres,  excavated  to  a  depth  of  one  or  two  me- 
tres, the  pit  often  surrounded  by  a  rude  wall  of 
field  stones.  In  the  centre  was  the  hearth. 
The  superstructure  was  merely  a  cone  composed 
of  a  framework  of  poles  interlaced  with  branches 
and  twigs  plastered  with  clay.  In  the  primitive 
hut  there  was  no  perpendicular  side  wall  above 
ground,  though  in  some  the  roof  may  have  been 
raised  somewhat  on  the  earth  thrown  out  from 
the  pit.  Such  differences  of  detail  are  of  slight 
importance.  The  huts  are  of  all  ages.  They 
were  probably  erected  far  back  in  Paleolithic 
time.  They  seem  to  be  figured  in  Magdalenian 
cave-frescoes.1  Even  the  Chellean  hunters  could 
hardly  have  erected  more  primitive  shelters. 
But  equally  rude  huts  are  still  inhabited  in  the 
Balkan  Peninsula,2  and  are  described  by  classical 
writers  as  inhabited  by  the  Germans. 

Says  Tacitus  (Germania,  XL VI)  of  the  Finns 
of  his  day:  "They  lead  a  vagrant  life:  their  food 
the  common  herbage;  the  skins  of  beasts  their 
only  clothing;  and  the  bare  earth  their  resting- 

MO:  283.  *  B:  53. 


LAND   HABITATIONS  57 

place.  ...  To  protect  their  infants  from  the 
fury  of  wild  beasts  and  the  inclemency  of  the 
weather,  they  make  a  kind  of  cradle  amidst  the 
branches  of  trees  interwoven  together,  and  they 
know  no  other  expedient.  The  youth  of  the 
country  have  the  same  habitation,  and  amidst 
the  trees  old  age  is  rocked  to  rest.  Savage  as 
this  way  of  life  may  seem,  they  prefer  it  to  the 
drudgery  of  the  field,  the  labor  of  building,  and 
the  painful  vicissitudes  of  hope  and  fear,  which 
always  attend  the  defense  and  the  acquisition  of 
property.  Secure  against  the  passions  of  men, 
and  fearing  nothing  from  the  anger  of  the  gods, 
they  have  attained  that  uncommon  state  of  fe- 
licity, in  which  there  is  no  craving  left  to  form  a 
single  wish.  The  rest  of  what  I  have  been  able 
to  collect  is  too  much  involved  in  fable.  ..." 

Let  us  hope  that  the  reports  which  Tacitus 
had  been  able  to  collect  concerning  the  dwellings, 
as  well  as  the  ferocity,  filth,  and  poverty  of  the 
Finns,  were  somewhat  exaggerated.  Evidently 
conical,  largely  subterranean  huts  have  been 
common  in  Europe  down  to  far  later  than  Neo- 
lithic times.  The  age  of  any  pit-dwelling  can 
be  determined  only  by  its  contents. 

In  addition  to  these  circular  pits,  long  or 
short  trenches  occur.  Forrer  found  at  Stutz- 
heim  one  cellar  more  than  ten  metres  long,  and 


58  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

varying  from  one  to  three  metres  in  width, 
with  several  lateral  enlargements  as  pantries 
and  storehouses.1  Forrer  considers  this  as  the 
home  of  the  chief  man,  the  "manor-house"  of 
the  settlement.  Around  it  he  found  remains  of 
huts  such  as  we  have  already  described.  Fre- 
quently space  for  storage  as  well  as  dwelling 
was  gained  by  clustering  small  huts.  This  plan 
would  have  had  the  advantage  of  protection 
against  loss  of  everything  by  fires,  which  must 
have  been  frequent.  Such  cramped  dwellings, 
with  the  garbage  scattered  over  the  bottom  of 
the  hut,  or  in  the  huts  of  the  most  highly  cul- 
tured deposited  in  a  special  hole  in  one  corner, 
could  hardly  have  been  attractive,  clean,  or 
sanitary.  But  they  were  cool  in  summer  and 
warm  in  winter,  and  afforded  protection  against 
wind  and  weather.  People  asked  and  expected 
no  more.  Housekeeping  was  simple,  if  not  easy. 
But  we  can  imagine  that  the  return  of  spring, 
allowing  them  to  emerge  from  their  burrows, 
must  have  been  hailed  with  delight. 

We  have  still  much  to  learn  concerning  these 
Neolithic  dwellings.  They  have  been  discov- 
ered by  chance,  and  usually  studied  only  hastily 
and  superficially.  A  pit  discovered  and  ex- 
amined may  have  been  only  one  of  a  large  clus- 

XE:  139. 


LAND  HABITATIONS  59 

ter  or  village,  of  which  the  rest  remained  un- 
discovered. Wooden  houses  of  logs,  or  with  a 
strong  frame  of  poles  seem  to  have  existed  in 
Bronze,  or  even  late  Neolithic  times.  Sophus 
Miiller1  describes  settlements  in  Denmark  where 
the  abundance  of  ashes  and  utensils  prove  long- 
continued  habitation,  and  yet  no  pits  seem  to 
have  been  found  —  this  may  be  due  to  insuf- 
ficient investigation  —  strongly  suggesting,  at 
least,  houses  entirely  above  ground  builded  of 
perishable  materials.  It  is  very  hard  to  believe 
that  even  a  Neolithic  family  could  have  lived 
through  the  winter  in  one,  mainly  subterranean, 
dwelling  only  two  metres  in  diameter,  with  a 
fireplace  in  the  middle.  They  would  have 
been  compelled  to  sleep  sitting  or  standing ! 
Probably  Stutzheim  and  other  similar  settle- 
ments which  have  been  discovered,  represent 
the  real  general  average  of  pit-dwellings,  while 
besides  these  there  were  many  of  far  superior 
style  and  comfort.  The  development  of  the 
Greek  house  is  still  a  problem,  much  more  that 
of  a  North  German  dwelling. 

As  an  example  of  late  Neolithic  settlement  of 
the  better  or  best  class,  we  may  take  Grosgar- 
tach,  near  Heilbronn,  in  the  Neckar  valley.2 
Here,  where  now  are  low  meadows,  was  once  a 

'G:  198;  J:  15.  =83. 


60  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

lake  connected  with  the  Neckar.  The  Neo- 
lithic village  was  carefully  and  skilfully  ex- 
plored by  Hofrath  Schliz,  whose  report  is  a 
model  of  careful  observation  and  clear  descrip- 
tion. 

The  situation  was  very  favorable,  with  loess- 
clad  hills  sloping  to  rich  meadows,  and  the  lake 
furnishing  fish  and  a  line  of  communication. 
The  areas  occupied  by  the  houses  and  stalls  were 
clearly  marked  by  the  dark  "culture-earth" 
contrasting  sharply  with  the  yellow  loess.  The 
principal  house  was  rectangular.  The  outer 
wall  was  composed  of  posts  with  a  wattling  of 
twigs.  This  was  plastered  with  clay,  mixed 
with  chaff  and  straw.  The  inner  face  of  the 
wall  was  smoothly  finished,  and  then  "kalso- 
mined"  reddish  yellow,  and  still  further  deco- 
rated with  fresco  in  geometrical  designs.  The 
house  —  5.80  metres  by  5.35  metres  —  was  di- 
vided into  two  rooms.  The  larger  part  of  the 
house  was  occupied  by  the  kitchen,  with  its  floor 
about  one  metre  below  the  surface  of  the  ground, 
and  entered  by  an  inclined  plane  or  ramp.  The 
other  chamber,  the  sleeping-room,  was  nearly  a 
metre  above  the  kitchen  and  separated  from  it 
by  a  partition.  Benches  cut  out  of  the  loess  were 
found  in  both  kitchen  and  sleeping-room.  Stalls 
for  cattle  and  barns  or  granaries  were  also  found. 


LAND  HABITATIONS  61 

Virchow,  in  his  review  of  Schliz's  monograph, 
emphasizes  the  fact  that  apparently  Grosgartach 
was  deserted  by  its  inhabitants  and  fell  into 
decay  without  leaving  any  signs  of  destruction 
by  fire  or  violence. 

The  villages  of  Butmir,  Lengyel,  Jablanica, 
and  others  in  southeastern  Europe  show  us  a 
condition  of  advanced  culture  here  also.1  De- 
chelette,  speaking  of  the  culture  of  this  region, 
notices  "the  striking  analogies  between  these  old 
walled  villages  of  the  Balkans  and  the  Danube 
valley,  and  those  of  the  Mgesm  villages  of  the 
Troad  and  Phrygia."  Primitive  idols,  painted 
pottery,  frequent  use  of  the  spiral  in  decorative 
art,  all  these  reappear  here  and  there  in  the 
Neolithic  stations  of  southeastern  Europe,  and 
in  the  eastern  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  in 
pre-Mycengean  and  Mycensean  days.  Evidently 
houses,  settlements,  modes  of  life,  and  stages  of 
culture  differ  greatly  during  the  same  epoch  of 
the  Neolithic  period  in  different  parts  of  Europe. 
Italy  was  always  far  in  advance  of  Europe  north 
of  the  Alps.  But  even  in  northern  Europe  there 
was  great  diversity.  Shell-heap  dwellers  still 
remained  long  after  a  much  higher  culture  pre- 
vailed throughout  most  of  Denmark.  The  life 
and  thought  of  the  pioneer  hunters  of  northern 

1  B.     See  Bibliography. 


62  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

Germany,  and  still  more  of  northern  Russia, 
were  very  different  from  those  of  the  agricul- 
turists along  the  valley  of  the  Danube  and  in  the 
Balkan  Peninsula.  In  Greece  little  city-states 
began  to  arise  early.  Even  in  northern  Europe 
density  of  population  and  size  of  settlements 
varied  greatly.  One  illustration  of  these  differ- 
ences can  be  seen  in  the  occurrence  of  fortified 
villages  and  refuges.1  The  age  of  these  forti- 
fications is  as  great  a  problem  as  that  of  the  re- 
mains found  in  a  pit-dwelling.  The  village  may 
be,  probably  usually  is,  much  older  than  the 
surrounding  wall,  and  an  earthen  wall  may 
contain  Neolithic  or  even  perhaps  Paleolithic 
implements.  The  custom  of  fortifying  villages 
evidently  spread  rapidly  during  the  Bronze  and 
Iron  periods.  Sophus  Miiller  tells  us  that  all 
walled  settlements  north  of  the  Alps  are  far 
younger  than  the  Neolithic  period.2  This  state- 
ment, often  disputed  or  neglected,  is  probably 
an  exaggeration,  but  may  well  be  true  of  the 
region  surrounding  the  Baltic.  The  sparse  and 
scattered  hunting  and  pioneer  population  of 
Scandinavia  and  Germany  had  no  need  of 
building  permanent  walls  around  their  single 
houses  or  small  villages.  They  had  very  little 
wealth  to  protect. 

»I:  368.  *H:  68. 


LAND  HABITATIONS  63 

But  an  agricultural  population  inhabiting  a 
fertile  region  open  to  attack  might  well  surround 
their  villages  with  a  wall,  or  provide  a  burg,  or 
fortified  place  or  "refuge,"  whither  they  might 
drive  their  cattle  or  transport  their  grain. 
Examples  of  this  are  Stutzheim  and  Urmitz,  in 
the  Rhine  valley,  always  a  great  thoroughfare, 
and  in  Switzerland  and  along  the  maritime  Alps 
villages  of  this  sort  seem  to  have  been  fairly  fre- 
quent. Apparently  they  were  still  more  numer- 
ous in  the  valley  of  the  Danube  and  in  the  Balkan 
Peninsula.  It  is  not  at  all  surprising  to  find 
them  in  Thessaly,  so  near  to  the  advanced  civi- 
lization of  Greece. 

Another  class  of  settlements  usually  well 
protected  were  the  workshops  (ateliers)  and 
manufacturing  villages,  especially  those  where 
flint  was  mined,  or  where  flint  implements  were 
made  in  large  quantities  and  distributed  by 
trade  over  wide  areas.1  During  the  Neolithic 
period  these  settlements  would  have  held  much 
the  same  place  and  importance  as  our  centres  of 
coal,  iron,  manufacturing,  and  business  have 
with  us  to-day.  Grand  Pressigny  and  Camp 
de  Chassey,  in  France,  and  Cissbury,  in  England, 
are  single  examples  of  a  great  number  of  such 
fortified    mining    and    manufacturing    villages. 

1  A:  I.  351. 


64  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

For  a  further  study  of  these  very  interesting  re- 
mains the  reader  is  referred  to  the  manuals  of 
Dechelette  and  Hoernes. 

Even  before  the  close  of  the  Paleolithic  period 
tundra  and  steppe  were  giving  place  to  forests, 
which  were  advancing  even  into  Scandinavia. 
The  forest  looms  large  and  terrible  in  the  works 
of  classical  writers  and  German  antiquarians. 
Says  Tacitus:  "Who  would  leave  the  softer 
climes  of  Asia,  Africa,  or  Italy  to  fix  his  abode 
in  Germany,  where  Nature  offers  nothing  but 
scenes  of  ugliness,  where  the  inclemency  of  the 
seasons  never  relents?  .  .  .  The  face  of  the 
country,  though  in  some  parts  varied,  presents  a 
cheerless  scene,  covered  with  the  gloom  of  for- 
ests, or  deformed  with  wide-extended  marshes." 
He  says  that  the  soil  produces  grain  and  is 
well  stocked  with  cattle,  though  of  small  size. 
But  grain  does  not  grow  in  primeval  forests, 
and  herds  of  cattle  need  at  least  open  glades 
for  pasturage.  It  is  an  extreme  picture  tinged 
by  the  homesickness  of  a  citizen  of  sunny  It- 
aly. Northern  Europe  was  generally  heavily 
forested  until  long  after  Tacitus's  time.  The 
Romans  began  in  earnest  the  work  of  deforest- 
ing France,  and  the  work  was  carried  on  all  over 
Europe  in  mediaeval  times.  The  Neolithic  im- 
migrants probably  made  small  clearings  with 


LAND  HABITATIONS  65 

the  aid  of  fire,  especially  where  the  trees  were 
low  and  not  too  thick,  as  on  many  light-soiled 
areas.  They  could  make  but  little  impression 
on  the  heavy  forest  growth,  though  they  could 
limit  its  spread.  They  probably  did  not  need 
to  make  wide  clearings  of  dense  forest.  There 
were  many  open  stretches  of  country  of  greater 
or  less  extent  awaiting  occupants  and  culture. 
This  was  true  especially  of  districts  occupied  by 
the  loess,  whose  origin  from  dust  drifted  by 
Paleolithic  wind-storms  we  have  already  no- 
ticed. 

Geikie  describes  loess  as  typically  a  "fine- 
grained, yellowish,  calcareous,  sandy  loam,  con- 
sisting very  largely  of  minute  grains  of  quartz 
with  some  admixture  of  argillaceous  and  cal- 
careous matter."1  It  is  for  the  most  part  a 
wind-blown  deposit.  It  is  widely  developed 
over  low-lying  regions,  but  sweeps  up  to  heights 
of  200  to  300  feet  and  more  above  the  bottoms 
of  the  great  river  valleys.  Again,  in  many 
places  we  find  it  heaped  up  under  the  lee  of 
hills,  the  exposed  windward  slopes  of  which  bear 
no  trace  of  it.  Wherever  there  is  loess  we  are 
likely  to  find  the  remains  of  steppe  plants  and 
animals.  The  ancient  steppe  area  which  gen- 
erally covers,  and  probably  extends  considerably 

l42:  122;  60;  110:  I,  6-13. 


66  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

beyond,  the  loess  district,  is  the  region  occupied 
by  most  of  the  primitive  settlements.  Even 
to-day  it  is  less  wooded  than  the  rest  of  north- 
ern Europe.  Such  steppe  regions  in  the  North 
German  plain  are  the  great  diluvial  river  ter- 
races, especially  the  terraces  of  the  Saale  and 
Elbe  and  the  eastern  edge  of  the  Harz  Moun- 
tains; in  South  Germany  the  lower  Alpine  "  Vor- 
land"  from  Switzerland  to  lower  Austria,  the 
uplands  of  Suabia  and  Franconia,  the  valleys 
of  the  Main  and  Neckar,  and  much  of  northern 
Bohemia.  These  steppe  regions  of  Germany, 
northern  Austria,  and  Switzerland  extended 
southeastward  in  a  zone  following  the  Danube, 
widening  out  in  the  great  Hungarian  plain  into 
the  vast  steppe  region  extending  eastward  from 
the  Black  Sea  or  Pont  us.  From  this  Pontic 
steppe  a  band  of  more  or  less  open  country  ex- 
tended northward  along  the  Carpathians  until 
it  almost  or  quite  joined  the  open  regions  of  the 
Elbe  and  along  the  Harz.  A  farther  extension 
of  this  same  band  seems  to  have  opened  the  way 
from  the  Harz  region  through  northwest  Ger- 
many into  Belgium  and  northern  France,  and 
very  probably  into  Brittany.  We  see  at  once 
the  importance  of  these  long  lines  of  open  or 
thinly    forested    country    to   the   immigrations 


LAND   HABITATIONS  67 

and  settlement  of  Neolithic  peoples.  Periodical 
floods  or  other  conditions  kept  open  many  river 
valleys,  whose  importance  we  shall  estimate  in 
a  later  chapter.  All  this  land,  except  the  up- 
lands of  Suabia  and  Franconia,  and  some  sim- 
ilar areas,  was  comparatively  fertile,  the  loess 
areas  particularly  so,  and  suited  to  a  primitive 
agriculture. 

In  England  the  valleys  of  the  Thames  and 
other  rivers  were  heavily  wooded  and  not  popu- 
lated until  much  later.  But  the  long  lines  of 
chalk-downs  and  oolitic  uplands  were  far  less 
favorable  to  forest  growth.  In  Norfolk  and 
Suffolk  there  were  apparently  open  spaces. 
Yorkshire  and  Derbyshire  had  very  similar 
landscapes.  The  forest  was  held  back  wherever 
the  porous  chalk  formation  made  a  large  out- 
crop. In  these  places  man  could  settle  and  find 
pasturage  for  his  flocks  and  attempt  a  poor  sort 
of  agriculture,  even  in  Neolithic  days.  Hence 
we  find  these  regions  dotted  with  Neolithic  set- 
tlements. The  immigrants  who  came  in  dur- 
ing the  Bronze  period  settled  in  the  same  re- 
gions. Here  again  clearing  of  the  forest  on 
any  large  scale  was  apparently  not  attempted 
until  Roman  times,  but  along  its  boundaries, 
where  the  forest  growth  was  not  too  heavy, 


68  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

these  primitive  agriculturists  may  well  have 
cut  off  the  lighter  growth  for  fuel  and  buildings, 
and  thus  have  gradually  appreciably  extended 
the  arable  area. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LAKE-DWELLINGS 

THE  winter  of  1853-1854  was  exceedingly 
cold  and  dry.  The  surface  of  the  Swiss 
lakes  sank  lower  than  at  any  time  dur- 
ing many  preceding  centuries.  The  lowering  of 
the  water  tempted  the  inhabitants  along  the 
shore  to  erect  dikes  and  thus  fill  in  the  newly 
gained  flats.  During  this  process  the  workmen 
along  the  edge  of  the  retreating  water  came 
upon  the  tops  of  piles,  and  between  those  great 
quantities  of  horn  and  stone  implements  and 
fragments  of  pottery.  Aeppli,  a  teacher  in 
Obermeilen,  called  the  attention  of  the  Anti- 
quarian Society  in  Zurich  to  these  discoveries. 
The  society  recognized  at  once  their  importance, 
and  under  the  leadership  of  its  president,  Fer- 
dinand Keller,  began  a  series  of  most  careful 
investigations  which  have  contributed  more  to 
our  knowledge  of  life  during  the  Neolithic  period 
than  any  discoveries  before  or  since. 

The  number  of  these  lake-dwellings  is  very 
large.  Lake  Neuchatel  has  furnished  over  50; 
Lake  Leman  (Geneva)  40;  Lake  Constance  over 

69 


70  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

40;  Lake  Zurich  10.  The  shores  of  the  smaller 
lakes  have  also  contributed  their  full  quota.1 
In  some  of  the  lakes  where  the  shore  was  favor- 
able, remains  of  a  lake-dwelling  have  been  found 
before  almost  every  modern  village.  Some- 
times we  find  the  remains  of  two  villages,  one 
somewhat  farther  out  than  the  other.  In  these 
cases  the  one  nearer  the  shore  is  the  older, 
usually  Neolithic,  while  the  one  farther  out  be- 
longs to  the  Bronze  period. 

These  settlements  are  by  no  means  limited  to 
Switzerland.  They  stretch  in  a  long  zone  along 
the  Alps  from  Savoy  and  southern  Germany 
through  Switzerland  into  Austria.2  Herodotus 
mentions  them  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  The 
amount  of  bronze  seems  to  increase  as  we  pass 
from  east  to  west.  They  are  found  frequently 
in  the  Italian  lakes,  mostly  containing  relics  of 
the  Bronze  Age,  though  here  the  western  set- 
tlements contain  little  or  no  metal.  A  second 
series  has  been  discovered  in  Britain  and  north- 
ern Germany,  and  extending  into  Russia.  These 
are  considerably  younger.  The  scheme  of  the 
lake-dwelling  was  used  in  historic  times  in  Ra- 
venna and  Venice.  Large  numbers  are  still  in- 
habited in  the  far  east. 

A  sunny,  sheltered  shore,  protected  by  hills 

*97:  11,  19.  295:  102. 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  71 

from  storms  and  action  of  waves,  was  always 
an  attractive  site.1  The  character  of  the  land, 
if  open  and  suitable  for  pasturage  and  culti- 
vation, was  doubtless  important.  Much  de- 
pended on  the  character  of  the  bottom.  Where 
the  shore  shelved  off  gradually  and  was  com- 
posed of  marl  or  sand,  the  piles  could  be  easily 
driven,  and  could  hold  their  place  firmly*  Even 
if  the  shore  was  somewhat  too  hard  and  the 
piles  could  be  driven  only  a  little  distance, 
they  were  strengthened  by  piles  of  stones,  often 
brought  from  a  considerable  distance.  When 
a  suitable  location  had  been  discovered  and 
selected  the  trees  were  felled  partly  by  the  use 
of  stone  axes,  and  partly  by  fire,  and  one  end 
of  the  log  was  pointed  by  the  same  means,  ac- 
cording to  Avebury.  Their  diameter  was  from 
three  to  nine  inches,  and  their  length  from  fifteen 
to  thirty  feet.  During  the  Bronze  period  larger 
trees  were  felled  and  split,  and  larger  piles  had 
to  be  used  in  the  deeper  water  farther  from  the 
shore.2 

These  rudely  sharpened  piles  were  driven  into 
the  bottom  by  the  use  of  heavy  stone  mallets. 
This  must  have  involved  an  immense  amount 
of  hard  labor,  for  at  the  settlement  of  Wangen 
50,000  piles  were  used,  though  not  all  probably 

J91:  475.  2L:  190. 


72  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

at  the  same  time.  Messikommer  calculated  that 
at  Robenhausen  over  100,000  were  used.  We 
find  sometimes  a  different  foundation.  It  con- 
sists of  a  solid  mass  of  mud  and  stones,  with 
erect  and  also  horizontal  logs  binding  the  whole 
structure  firmly  together.  This  is  evidently  a 
ruder,  simpler,  and  perhaps  more  primitive, 
mode  of  building.  It  was  less  suited  to  an  open 
situation,  exposed  to  heavy  waves,  and  seems 
to  occur  more  often  in  smaller  lakes  now  often 
filled  with  peat.1  Wauwyl  and  Nieberwyl  are 
good  illustrations  of  such  a  " Packwerkbau." 
Some  have  considered  them  as  originally  float- 
ing rafts. 

When  the  piles  had  been  firmly  driven,  cross- 
pieces  were  laid  over  the  top,  and  on  this  a 
"flooring"  of  smaller  poles,  or  of  halved  logs 
or  even  split  boards,  whose  interstices  were 
probably  filled  with  moss  and  clay,  forming  a 
solid  and  fairly  even  surface,  on  which  the  dwell- 
ings could  be  erected.  The  framework  of  the 
houses  was  of  small  piles,  some  of  which  have 
been  found  projecting  considerably  above  the 
platforms.2  "The  size  of  the  house  is  further 
marked  out  by  boards  forced  in  between  the 
piles  and  resting  edgeways  on  the  platform,  thus 
forming  what  at  the  present  day  we  should  call 

1B:  251.  291:  8. 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  73 

the  skirting  boards  (mop-boards)  of  the  hut  or 
rooms.  The  walls  or  sides  were  made  of  a  wat- 
tle or  hurdle  work  of  small  branches,  woven  in 
between  the  upright  piles,  and  covered  with  a 
considerable  thickness  of  loam  or  clay."  This 
is  proved  by  numbers  of  pieces  of  clay  half- 
burnt,  or  hardened  in  the  fire,  with  the  impres- 
sions of  the  wattle-work  still  remaining.  These 
singularly  illustrative  specimens  are  found  in 
nearly  every  settlement  which  has  been  de- 
stroyed by  fire.  The  houses  were  rectangular 
except  in  a  few  cases.  They  were  apparently 
thatched  with  straw  or  reeds.  The  hearths 
consisted  of  three  or  four  stone  slabs. 

These  houses  were  calculated  by  Messikom- 
mer  at  Robenhausen  to  have  been  about  27  by 
22  feet,  a  very  respectable  size.  One  was  ex- 
cavated at  Schussenried,  whose  side-walls  and 
floor  were  fairly  well  preserved.  This  was  a 
rectangle  about  33  by  23  feet  (10  by  7  metres), 
and  was  divided  into  two  chambers.  The  front 
room,  63^  by  4  metres,  opened  by  a  door  facing 
south,  and  with  remains  of  a  hearth  in  one  cor- 
ner. The  rear  room,  6%  by  5  metres,  was 
without  outer  door,  and  was  apparently  a  bed- 
room.1 Beside  these  houses,  or  forming  a  part 
of  them,  were  stalls  for  the  cattle,  granaries, 

J96:  366. 


74  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

and  probably  work-shops.  (The  distribution  of 
different  remains  is  well  shown  in  Keller's  Lake 
Dwellings,  I,  p.  45.)  The  stone  and  bone  im- 
plements, and  the  pottery  of  the  lake-dwellers 
can  be  more  conveniently  considered  in  connec- 
tion with  those  of  other  regions. 

We  pass  now  to  the  remains  of  animals  and 
plants  found  here,  especially  in  their  relations 
to  the  food  supply  of  the  people.1  Altogether 
about  70  species  of  animals  have  been  dis- 
covered. Of  these  10  are  fish,  4  reptiles,  26 
birds,  and  30  mammals,  of  which  6  were  prob- 
ably domesticated.  The  largest  of  these  were 
the  great  Cervus  alces  or  moose  —  sometimes 
called  elk  —  the  wild  cattle,  and  the  stag  (Cer- 
vus elaphus).  Bones  of  the  stag  and  ox  are  very 
numerous  and  equal  those  of  all  others  together. 
Of  the  horse  very  few  remains  are  found  until 
the  Bronze  period.  Wild  horses  seem  to  have 
lived  on  in  certain  parts  of  Europe  until  a  late 
date,  but  apparently  they  had  emigrated  almost 
altogether  from  this  region.  The  horse  of  the 
Bronze  Age  was  domesticated.  The  lion  had 
left  this  region,  but  lingered  on  in  the  Balkans 
down  to  historic  times.  The  brown  bear  and 
the  wolf  still  roamed  in  the  forest.  In  the  old- 
est  lake-dwellings  the   bones  of  wild   animals 

'L:  199;  96:  265;  D:  452;  97:  45-60. 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  75 

make  up  a  far  larger  proportion  of  the  remains 
than  in  the  latest  ones. 

We  find  a  somewhat  small  dog  (Cams  famili- 
aris  palustris)  closely  resembling  that  of  the 
Danish  shell-heaps.  It  was  apparently  of  the 
jackal  type,  and  much  like  the  modern  Spitz. 
This  would  have  been  an  excellent  watch-dog 
to  give  warning  of  the  approach  of  enemies. 
But  at  the  close  of  the  Neolithic,  with  the  in- 
crease of  flocks  of  sheep,  a  larger  dog  more 
closely  related  to  the  wolf  seems  to  have  spread 
widely  through  the  country  (Canis  familiaris 
matris  optima?  Juit.).  This  form  was  much  like, 
and  probably  the  ancestor  of,  our  present  sheep- 
dogs. A  third  form  (Canis  intermedins)  also 
occurs.  The  origin  and  relationships  of  the 
various  forms  of  this  oldest  domesticated  animal 
are  still  anything  but  clear.  That  they  all  go 
back  to  the  jackal  and  the  wolf  rather  than  to  a 
form  like  the  Australian  dingo,  still  seems  to  be 
most  generally  accepted.     (But  see  Schenk.1) 

Man  gained  the  dog  by  domesticating  the 
jackal  and  different  species  of  wolves  in  different 
parts  of  the  world  and  then  by  crossing,  or, 
by  a  more  or  less  unconscious  selection,  bred 
different  varieties,  until  we  have  at  present  a 
chaos  of  intermingled  forms.     Something  sim- 

*97:  47;  96:  289. 


76  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

ilar  but  on  a  smaller  scale  was  true  of  the  domes- 
tic cattle.  One  kind  of  domestic  cattle  appears 
fully  domesticated  in  the  oldest  lake-dwellings. 
It  is  unlike  any  wild  European  form.  This  is 
the  Bos  brachyceros.  It  was  almost  certainly 
imported.  Mingled  with  its  forms  we  find  those 
of  the  Bos  primigenius,  a  native  of  Europe  and 
North  Asia,  but  apparently  not  domesticated. 
This  is  the  urus,  which  was  common  in  Europe 
in  Caesar's  day,  and  lasted  in  central  Europe 
until  1000  A.  D.  and  still  lingers  in  Poland.1 
This  was  a  very  large  and  powerful  form  with 
long  spreading  horns,  whose  domestication  ap- 
pears to  have  commenced  toward  the  close  of 
the  Neolithic  period.  It  is  not  improbable  that 
it  was  domesticated,  or  at  least  tamed,  inde- 
pendently in  different  countries  at  quite  differ- 
ent times.  Raising  of  cattle  was  at  its  height 
during  the  Bronze  Age;  afterward  the  results 
seem  to  decline  and  the  cattle  to  degenerate. 

One  of  the  Vaphio  vases  of  about  1500  B.  C. 
represents  the  capture  of  large,  long-horned 
cattle  in  a  net,  while  the  second  shows  similar 
animals  tamed.  Apparently  the  smaller  and 
lighter  brachyceros  was  first  tamed,  and  this 
success  led  to  a  series  of  experiments  with  the 
larger  and  more  difficult  form.2 

*135;  C:  65  and  116.  2  97. 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  77 

If  we  draw  a  line  from  northwestern  Russia 
diagonally  across  Europe  southwestward  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Rhone,  it  will  divide  fairly  well 
the  distribution  of  the  descendants  of  those  two 
forms.  To  the  eastward  in  Russia  and  Austria, 
also  generally  through  Germany,  and  extending 
also  along  the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  we  find  the 
large,  heavy,  usually  long-horned  descendants 
of  the  primigenius  stock.  The  cattle  of  Spain, 
and  southward  into  Africa,  of  France  and  Eng- 
land, are  more  of  the  short-horned,  light-built, 
smaller  brachyceros  type.  Holstein  and  Jersey 
are  good  representatives  of  the  two  types,  though 
the  Holsteins  are,  perhaps,  a  somewhat  marked 
variety.  Some  regard  the  cattle  of  the  Scotch 
highlands  as  the  best  representatives  of  the 
primigenius  type,  though  reduced  in  size.  This 
same  type,  on  account  of  its  size  and  endurance 
of  harsh  climate,  has  furnished  the  range  cattle 
of  our  Western  plains. 

Two  fairly  distinct  forms  of  swine  occur  in 
the  lake-dwellings.  The  first  is  the  so-called 
turbary  pig  (Sus  scrofa  palustris).  This  is  a 
small  form  with  comparatively  long  legs.  It 
differs  markedly  from  the  wild  boar,  and  was 
probably  imported  already  domesticated.  Being 
more  or  less  left  to  feed  and  shift  for  itself,  it 
may  well  have  declined  in**  size  from  its  primitive 


78  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

oriental  ancestors.  Remains  of  the  larger  Eu- 
ropean wild  boar  (Sus  scrofa  ferus  L.)  also  occur 
from  the  beginning  as  products  of  the  hunt. 
But  during  the  Bronze  period  domesticated 
descendants  of  this  variety  grow  numerous,  and 
are  crossed  with  the  smaller  turbary  pig. 

"The  domestic  sheep,"  says  Brehm,  "is  a 
quiet,  gentle,  patient,  simple,  will-less,  cowardly, 
wearisome  animal.  It  has  no  character.  It  un- 
derstands and  learns  nothing;  is  incapable  of 
helping  itself."  *  It  is  certainly  absolutely  de- 
pendent upon  man  for  guidance  and  protection. 
This  lies  partly  in  its  inherited  nature  and  orig- 
inal surroundings,  but  suggests  long  domestica- 
tion. Like  the  goat,  it  is  originally  a  moun- 
tain form,  but  adapts  itself  readily  to  the  dry 
herbage  of  the  steppe.  It  is  not  a  native  of 
central  Europe  but  introduced.  It  is  much 
rarer  than  the  goat  in  the  oldest  lake-dwellings, 
but  gradually  becomes  more  abundant,  espe- 
cially in  the  Bronze  period. 

The  turbary  sheep  (Ovis  aries  yalustris)  is 
very  small,  with  slender  legs,  long  narrow  skull, 
and  bones  somewhat  like  those  of  the  goat.  It 
was  certainly  not  developed  in  Switzerland,  and 
before  it  arrived  there  it  had  apparently  been 
much  modified  by  conditions  of  life  or  by  cross- 

1  Quoted  in  135:  chap.  III.  116. 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  79 

ing.  Its  anatomical  characteristics  are  made 
up  of  at  least  three  wild  forms.  The  first  of 
these  is  the  goat-like  maned  sheep  (Ovis  trage- 
laphus)  ranging  over  the  mountains  of  northern 
Africa,  extending  across  into  Abyssinia.  This 
form  seems  to  have  been  domesticated  in  Egypt 
before  the  middle  of  the  fourth  millennium.  At 
a  much  later  date,  in  Homeric  times,  herds  of 
sheep  of  a  similar  form  were  kept  in  Greece.  It 
was  much  larger  than  the  turbary  form. 

The  arkal  (Ovis  arkal)  is  the  steppe  sheep  of 
central  and  western  Asia.  It  is  the  ancestor 
of  the  oriental  and  African  fat- tailed  sheep. 
The  western  Asiatic  forms  seem  to  have  devel- 
oped the  fine  wool  at  the  expense  of  the  coarse 
hair,  like  that  of  the  goat  and  of  many  other 
forms. 

A  third  form  is  the  Moufflon,  of  the  mountains 
around  the  Mediterranean  and  of  its  larger 
islands  —  here  probably  introduced.  Similar 
forms  appear  in  Europe  during  the  Bronze 
period. 

Other  species  are  found  in  different  parts  of 
Asia.  The  balance  of  probabilities  seems  to 
incline  toward  the  view  that  the  turbary  sheep 
came  into  Europe  from  western  and  central 
Asia  with  other  "turbary"  forms,  that  it  had 
been  long  domesticated,  and  either  here  or  on 


80  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

its  westward  migration  may  have  more  or  less 
crossed  with  the  descendants  of  other  varieties. 
The  oldest  domesticated  goats  seem  to  be  de- 
scended from  the  Bezoar  goat  (Capra  wgagrus), 
from  the  mountains  of  southwestern  Asia. 

The  presence  of  oxen,  sheep,  and  goats  is 
enough  to  prove  that  the  people  must  have 
practised  agriculture  to  some  extent  to  have 
kept  these  animals  alive  through  the  winter. 
That  they  were  kept  on  the  platform  is  shown 
by  the  presence  of  manure  in  the  remains  un- 
derneath. Whether  this  was  used  for  fertilizer 
we  do  not  know,  nor  their  method  of  cultivating 
the  ground.  No  agricultural  implements  have 
come  down  to  us. 

"The  small-grained,  six-rowed  barley  (Hor- 
deum  hexastichum  sanctum)  and  the  small  lake- 
dwelling  wheat  {Triticum  vulgar e  antiquorum) 
were  the  most  ancient,  most  important,  and 
most  generally  cultivated  farinaceous  seeds  of 
our  country.  Next  to  them  come  the  beardless 
compact  wheat  (T.  vulg.  compactum  muticum) 
and  the  larger  six-rowed  barley  (Hordeum  hexa- 
stichum densum),  with  the  two  kinds  of  millet, 
the  common  millet  {Panicum  miliaceum)  and 
the  Italian  millet  (Setaria  italica).  The  Egyp- 
tian wheat  {Triticum  turgidum  L.),  the  two- 
rowed  wheat  (emmer,  Triticum  dicoccum  Schr.), 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  81 

and  the  one-grained  wheat  (Trit.  monococciim) 
were  probably,  like  the  two-rowed  barley,  only 
cultivated  as  experiments  in  a  few  places;  and 
the  spelt  (Triticum  spelta  L.),  which  at  present 
is  one  of  the  most  important  cereals,  and  the 
oat  (Avena  sativa  L.)  appeared  later,  not  till 
the  Bronze  Age,  while  rye  was  entirely  unknown 
among  the  lake-dwellings  of  Switzerland."1 

Oats  occur  in  the  Bronze  period  in  western, 
middle,  and  northern  Europe,  in  the  Alpine 
lake-dwellings,  and  in  the  Danish  islands.  The 
ancient  Egyptians  and  Hebrews,  Indians  and 
Chinese,  did  not  cultivate  them;  they  were 
raised  in  Asia  Minor  and  America  only  since  his- 
toric times.  We  remember  that  wheat  and  bar- 
ley are  mentioned  in  the  oldest  records  of  the 
Old  Testament  —  as  in  Gideon's  barley  loaf  — 
but  rye  and  oats  not  at  all. 

The  grains  seem  to  show  a  gradual  improve- 
ment in  productiveness  from  the  very  oldest 
settlements  to  those  of  the  Bronze  period.  They 
are  found  charred  and  perfectly  preserved 
wherever  the  houses  were  destroyed  by  fire. 
Even  the  ears  and  stalks  have  been  saved  for 
us  in  the  same  manner.  Charred  loaves  of 
bread,  and  cake  made  of  poppy -seeds,  were  also 
found.     "Bread  was  made  only  of  wheat  and 

'91:  519;  141. 


82  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

millet,  the  latter  with  the  addition  of  some 
grains  of  wheat,  and,  for  the  sake  of  flavoring 
it,  with  linseed  also.  Bread  made  of  barley  has 
not  yet  been  found,  and  it  is  probable  that  bar- 
ley was  chiefly  eaten  boiled,  or  more  probably 
parched  or  roasted."1  Flint  sickles  made  of  a 
long  flake  set  at  a  right  angle  with  the  wooden 
handle  have  been  found  in  Denmark,  and  others 
whose  blade  is  formed  by  a  row  of  small,  sharp 
flints  set  in  the  edge  of  a  wooden  block  occur  in 
Egypt.  The  hand-mills  or  mealing-stones  are 
very  abundant,  as  might  be  expected. 

The  occurrence  of  the  seeds  of  the  Cretan 
catchfly  (Silene  cretica  L.)  is  interesting,  as  it 
is  not  found  wild  in  Germany  or  in  southeastern 
Europe,  but  over  all  the  countries  of  the  Medi- 
terranean. Similarly,  the  corn-bluebottle  (Cen- 
taura  cyanus  L.)  is  found  wild  in  Sicily.  This 
seems  to  show  that  these  plants  came  in  with 
the  wheat  from  Italy.  But  it  is  still  possible 
that  both  Switzerland  and  Italy  received  them 
from  a  source  somewhat  or  considerably  farther 
east  or  south. 

Apples  and  pears,  split  and  dried,  occur  abun- 
dantly. Some  of  the  apples  are  so  large  that 
they  suggest  a  certain  amount  of  care  and  cul- 
tivation.    Sour  crabapples,   and  the  stones  of 

»91:  521. 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  83 

cherries,  plums,  and  sloes  are  found  accompanied 
by  the  seeds  of  the  wild  grape;  of  elderberries, 
raspberries,  blackberries,  and  strawberries. 
Acorns,  beechnuts,  and  hazelnuts  were  stored  up. 
Besides  the  seeds  of  the  poppy,  already  men- 
tioned, those  of  caraway  were  used  apparently 
to  flavor  the  bread.  Altogether  some  170  plants 
have  been  discovered  and  determined  from  these 
localities.1 

Basket-making  and  the  weaving  of  mats  from 
bast-fibres  had  led  up  to  a  highly  developed 
weaver's  art.  Few  or  no  remains  of  wool  have 
come  down  to  us  from  Neolithic  time,  though 
it  occurs  in  graves  of  the  Bronze  Age  farther 
north.  It  would  not  preserve  by  charring,  as 
all  other  lake-dwelling  organic  remains  have 
been  saved  for  us,  and  our  failure  to  discover 
it  is  not  surprising.  We  can  hardly  believe 
that  these  people  did  not  use  the  wool  of  their 
flocks  of  sheep,  or  failed  to  felt  the  hair  of  their 
goats.  But  flax  has  been  found  in  all  stages 
of  preparation  and  manufacture  in  great  quan- 
tities. Says  Messikommer  of  Robenhausen : 
"Every  house  had  its  loom."  We  find  not  only 
threads,  cords,  and  ropes,  twine  and  nets,  but 
cloth  of  varying  pattern  and  design.  Some 
pieces  were  so  finely  woven  and  well  preserved 

J96:  295. 


84  THE   NEW   STONE  AGE 

that  their  discoverers  could  hardly  believe  that 
they  were  not  of  modern  make.  Fringes  and 
embroidery  occur.1 

Linen  alone  could  hardly  have  furnished 
sufficient  protection  against  the  cold  and  damp- 
ness of  the  Swiss  winter  climate.  The  more 
primitive  inhabitants  had  an  abundance  of  furs. 
Garments  of  sheepskin  were  doubtless  in  use. 
And  probably  wool  and  goat's-hair  were  woven 
or  felted  into  outer  garments.  Dye-stuffs  of 
black,  yellow,  red,  and  blue  coloring  furnished 
a  variety  of  tints  and  shades. 

Very  few  human  bones  have  been  found  among 
those  lake-dwelling  remains ;  and  only  a  few  bur- 
ial-places, or  rather  tombs,  in  the  neighboring 
mainland.  The  discussion  of  their  mode  of 
burial  and  racial  characteristics  may  well  be 
deferred  to  a  later  chapter. 

Of  their  religious  cult  we  know  almost  noth- 
ing.2 No  idols  or  fetiches  have  been  recognized. 
Certain  "crescents"  of  clay,  supported  with  the 
horns  turned  upward,  have  been  considered  by 
some  as  head-rests,  for  which  purpose  they  are 
still  used  by  certain  African  tribes.  Others 
have  considered  them  as  representatives  of  the 
crescent  moon;  still  others  as  conventionalized 
ox  heads  and  horns.     It  seems  highly  probable 

'95:  175.  2L:  222;  91:  175-178,  338. 


WEAVING  AND  PLAITING  FROM  LAKE-DWELLINGS 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  85 

that  they  had  some  religious  significance,  but 
its  exact  nature  is  still  uncertain.  We  shall 
return  to  them  later. 

A  lake-dwelling  of  any  size  is  inconceivable 
without  a  well-advanced  social  development. 
It  could  hardly  be  founded,  builded,  or  main- 
tained without  close  co-operation.  Families 
had  to  live  closely  crowded  together,  almost  as 
in  our  modern  cities.  Neighbors  had  learned 
to  get  on  with  one  another  and  live  together  in 
peace,  and  to  submit  to  a  close  regulation  or 
discipline  by  law  or  custom.  They  seem  to  have 
been  a  peaceful  folk  and  exposed  to  no  great 
dangers  from  outside  attack,  at  least  in  Neo- 
lithic time.  When  the  ice  fringed  the  shores  or 
covered  the  small  lakes,  they  must  have  been 
easily  open  to  attack.  A  few  brands  thrown 
into  the  thatched  roof  would  have  brought  sure 
destruction.  Traces  of  conflagration  occur,  as 
at  Robenhausen,  which  was  twice  destroyed  by 
fire.1  But  these  occurrences  are  rare.  Neo- 
lithic settlements  seem  to  have  been  more  fre- 
quently abandoned  because  of  the  growth  of 
peat  than  by  any  sudden  or  violent  destruction. 
Conditions  probably  changed  in  this  respect  dur- 
ing the  Bronze  period. 

Their  food  was  varied  and  more  than  fairly 

»91:  47. 


86  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

abundant.  They  had  their  domestic  animals  to 
furnish  flesh,  milk,  probably  butter  and  cheese. 
Agriculture  was  primitive,  but  in  some  cases  we 
find  large  stores,  we  might  say  granaries,  of 
wheat;  and  wild  fruits  and  vegetable  foods 
were  abundant.  The  forests  offered  game,  and 
the  lakes  were  well-stocked  with  fish.  There 
may  have  been  times  of  hardship  and  dearth, 
but  famine  could  hardly  have  ravaged  a  people 
with  these  three  sources  of  supply. 

The  lake  offered  a  thoroughfare  for  their 
canoes,  and  communication  was  easy  for  long 
distances.  To  cite  only  one  illustration:  flint 
was  brought  from  Grand  Pressigny,  in  France, 
and  manufactured  in  certain  Swiss  localities. 
There  was  much  variety  and  division  of  labor  be- 
tween different  villages.  One  manufactured  flint 
very  largely  —  so  at  and  around  Moosseedorf; 
while  Robenhausen  and  Wangen  have  furnished 
great  quantities  of  cloth.  Others  were  rather 
centres  for  the  manufacture  of  pottery.  Even 
in  the  same  village  one  area  is  richer  in  one 
product,  a  second  in  another.  There  was  much 
variety  as  well  as  freedom  of  intercommunica- 
tion. The  whole  region  lay  a  little  back  from 
the  great  Danube  thoroughfare,  but  near  enough 
to  it  to  retain  connection  with  the  larger  world. 
Life  was  not  altogether  monotonous. 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  87 

The  lake-dwellings  have  been  divided  accord- 
ing to  their  age  into  three  groups  or  stages,  rep- 
resenting three  epochs  more  or  less  marked.1 

Stage  I.  Archaic  Epoch. — Axes  small  and 
made  out  of  indigenous  material.  "Hammer- 
axes"  and  utensils  of  horn  and  bone  rude.  No 
decorations  on  weapons,  utensils,  nor  on  the 
crude  pottery.  Plaiting  and  weaving  practised. 
Population  in  Switzerland  at  this  time  seems  to 
have  been  sparse.  Food  obtained  from  hunt 
more  than  from  domestic  animals.  Examples: 
Chavannes  (Schafis)  Moosseedorf,  Wauwyl. 
People  brachycephalic. 

Stage  II.  Middle  Neolithic  Epoch. — Weapons 
and  utensils  more  perfect.  Stone  axes  finely 
polished,  often  with  hole  for  handle,  sometimes 
very  large.  Beside  the  commoner  minerals  five 
to  eight  per  cent  of  implements  made  of  neph- 
ritoids  (nephrite,  jadeite,  and  chloromelanite) . 
These  are  almost  absent  in  Epochs  I  and  III. 
Pottery  of  far  better  material  and  manufacture, 
with  traces  of  ornament.  Remains  of  domes- 
tic and  wild  animals  nearly  equal.  Domestic 
animals  are  turbary  pig,  goat,  sheep,  turbary 
cattle,  but  primigenius  form  present  though  less 
common.  Brachycephalic  and  dolichocephalic 
people  nearly  equal  in  number.  Examples: 
Robenhausen  and  Concise. 

*95:  135;  96:  189,  219,  191. 


88  THE   NEW  STONE   AGE 

Stage  III.  Copper  Epoch. — Hammer-axes, 
beautifully  finished.  Bone  and  horn  imple- 
ments. Nephritoid  minerals  less  used.  Pottery 
more  artistic.  Cord-decoration  appears.  Cer- 
tain ornaments,  weapons,  and  implements  are 
made  of  copper.  Domesticated  animals  improve 
and  form  a  larger  part  of  the  food  than  game. 
Cattle  especially  increase  in  numbers,  and  a 
new  race  of  sheep  has  arisen.  Long-heads 
more  numerous  than  broad-heads.  Examples: 
Roseax,  at  Morges.     Locraz,  Ferril  (Vinelz).1 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  remains  of 
domestic  cattle  are  abundant  in  all  ages,  that 
goats  are  more  abundant  than  sheep  in  the  earli- 
est lake-dwelling,  but  that  the  sheep  became 
equally  numerous  in  the  second  epoch,  while 
they  decidedly  outnumbered  the  goats  during 
the  Bronze  period.  This  is  what  we  should 
expect  from  the  advance  of  culture. 

Says  Keller:2  "The  shores  of  the  western  por- 
tion of  Lake  Constance  are  probably  more 
thickly  studded  with  settlements  than  those  of 
any  other  Swiss  lake.  In  fact,  here  are  found 
happily  united  all  the  requirements  necessary 
for  the  erection  of  dwellings  of  this  nature.     A 


*For  a  study  of  examples  grouped  according  to  epoch,  see  96:  p. 
220-264. 

2  91:  II,  432. 


LAKE-DWELLINGS  89 

deposit  of  marl  stretches  along  nearly  the  whole 
of  its  shores  and  of  tolerable  breadth.  A  rich 
tract  of  country  between  the  shore  and  the  hills 
which  rise  quietly  behind;  forests  of  pine  and 
oak;  pleasant  bays  with  a  gravelly  bottom;  a 
great  abundance  of  fish  in  the  lake,  and  a  super- 
fluity of  game  in  the  surrounding  forests,  were 
circumstances  highly  favorable  to  the  coloniza- 
tion of  these  shores." 

Could  we  have  sat  on  one  of  these  village  plat- 
forms of  a  summer  afternoon  and  looked  out  to 
the  wheat-fields  on  the  shore,  and  seen  the  canoes 
come  in  with  fish  or  game,  and  the  cattle  re- 
turning from  the  mainland  pasture;  could  we 
have  watched  the  men  fashioning  implements 
and  all  manner  of  woodwork,  and  the  women 
grinding  the  grain  or  moulding  pottery,  or  spin- 
ning and  weaving;  we  should  have  found  a  great 
deal  to  please  and  interest  us.  The  fruits  and 
berries,  the  smell  of  roasting  fish  and  baking 
bread,  of  cakes  well  flavored  with  the  oil  from 
beechnut  or  flax,  or  perhaps  sifted  over  with 
the  seeds  of  poppy  or  caraway,  would  have  been 
far  from  disagreeable.  We  should  have  felt 
that  it  was  a  goodly  land,  and  that  life  was  well 
worth  living.  We  should  not  have  been  dis- 
turbed by  shrieking  steamboats,  puffing  and 
groaning  locomotives,  or  honking  automobiles, 


90  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

or  by  telegraphs  or  telephones,  by  letters  which 
must  be  answered  or  books  which  must  be  read. 
There  were  no  stocks  and  bonds,  bills  or  notes, 
strikes  or  lockouts.  There  was  no  labor  ques- 
tion; all  simply  had  to  work.  No  one  went  to 
school,  except  to  nature,  and  there  were  no  lec- 
tures. "The  name  of  that  chamber  was  peace." 
We  ought  not  to  forget  in  our  comfort  that 
everybody  could  not  live  in  a  lake-dwelling,  that 
all  over  Europe  there  were  other  settlements  or 
dwellings,  more  lonely  or  isolated,  where  food 
was  never  abundant  and  sometimes  very  scarce, 
where  labor  was  unremitting  and  the  reward 
scanty.  But  even  in  those  less  civilized  re- 
gions there  was  probably  usually  much  rude 
comfort;  and  if  there  were  times  of  scarcity 
and  want,  there  were  also  times  of  feasting  and 
abundance.  All  over  Europe  there  were,  even 
in  Neolithic  time,  children,  boys  and  girls  play- 
ing around  the  houses;  and  young  men  and 
women  looking  out  on  life  with  the  same  in- 
experience and  illusions,  courage  and  hopes, 
which  lure  us  onward  to-day. 


CHAPTER  V 
A  GLANCE  EASTWARD 

THE  culture  of  the  oldest  lake-dwellings 
appears  suddenly  in  Europe,  and  its  be- 
ginnings are  exotic  in  all  their  essentials. 
The  turbary  cattle  were  quite  different  from  the 
wild  primigenius  race  of  the  surrounding  regions ; 
and  we  find  no  remains  of  the  intermediate 
forms  which  should  occur  if  domestication  had 
taken  place  here.  The  same  is  true  of  the  tur- 
bary pig.  Wild  sheep  are  unknown  in  northern 
Europe,  and  the  moufflon  of  the  Mediterranean 
islands  can  hardly  have  been  the  ancestor  of  our 
Swiss  flocks,  and  is  very  possibly  descended 
from  domesticated  ancestors  which  reverted  to 
wild  life.  Something  very  similar  may  be  said 
of  our  oldest  cereals,  wheat  and  barley. 

We  must  evidently  turn  eastward  or  south- 
ward to  find  the  cradle  of  the  whole  culture. 
Even  if  it  came  partly  from  Italy,  it  could  hardly 
have  developed  there.  Egypt  may  have  made 
contributions,  but  mostly  at  a  later  date.  We 
naturally  turn  first  to  Asia,  the  great  centre  of 
mammalian  evolution,  probably  the  oldest  seat 
of  cattle-raising  and  agriculture,  cradle  of  man 

91 


92  THE   NEW  STONE   AGE 

and  centre  of  his  earliest  development.  The 
true  Neolithic  cultures  in  northern  Europe  can 
hardly  be  older  than  about  6000  B.  C;  the 
lake-dwellings  are  probably  far  younger.  We 
must  first  inquire  into  the  location,  age,  and 
character  of  the  oldest  agriculture  in  nearer 
Asia,  where  great  discoveries  have  been  made 
during  the  last  twenty  years. 

We  naturally  turn  first  to  Babylonia.  Under 
the  temple  of  Bel,  at  Nippur,  was  an  immense 
platform  constructed  of  sun-dried  bricks,  most 
of  them  stamped  with  the  name  of  Sargon  or  of 
Naram  Sin.  The  date  of  Sargon  seems  still 
uncertain;  many  historians  place  it  at  2800 
B.  C;  others,  and  apparently  most  archaeolo- 
gists, like  Obermaier,  still  hold  to  the  old  date, 
3750  B.  C.1  Without  any  attempt  to  decide 
this  question,  we  will  hold  in  this  chapter  to 
the  older  date;  and  believers  in  the  latter  date 
can  subtract  1,000  from  our  figures  for  earlier 
times,  though  this  does  not  apply  to  Pumpelly's 
estimates. 

Says  Delitzsch2  of  this  mound:  "In  the  deep- 
est layers  of  these  remains,  or  what  amounts  to 
the  same,  back  many  centuries  beyond  the 
fifth  millennium,  everywhere  interesting  and  val- 
uable  remains   of   human   civilization  come  to 

'D:  527,549.  =115:  535. 


A   GLANCE   EASTWARD  93 

light,  fragments  of  vessels  of  copper,  bronze, 
and  clay,  a  quantity  of  earthenware  so  beauti- 
fully lacquered  in  red  and  black  that  we  might 
consider  them  of  Greek  origin,  or  at  least  influ- 
enced by  Greek  art,  had  they  not  been  found 
eight  metres  deep  under  Naram  Sin's  pavement." 
Here  we  find  the  Bronze  period,  or  possibly  late 
Copper,  before  5000  B.  C.  A  city  with  a  high 
and  complex  culture  had  already  arisen.  No 
one  believes  that  the  culture  could  have  origi- 
nated in  the  rank,  almost  untamable,  primitive 
jungle  of  Mesopotamia.  Its  beginnings  must 
be  sought  elsewhere  and  earlier.  But  the  age 
and  character  of  Babylonian  civilization  encour- 
age one  to  seek  further  in  western  Asia. 

In  1904  Pumpelly1  made  most  thorough  and 
careful  investigations  at  Anau,  near  Askabad 
in  Turkestan,  about  300  miles  east  of  the  south- 
east corner  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  200  miles 
west  of  Merv.  The  remarkable  results  of  his 
work  are  described  in  two  large  volumes,  and 
have  not  received  the  attention  which  they  de- 
serve. He  excavated  in  two  large  Kurgans  or 
mounds.  The  north  Kurgan  is  the  older  and 
chiefly  concerns  us.  The  Neolithic  remains 
occur  in  thin  compact  strata  aggregating  some 
forty -five  feet  in  thickness.     The  earliest  settle- 

l110. 


94  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

ment  was  a  town  covering  at  least  five  acres, 
possibly  nearly  ten. 

At  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  the  settle- 
ment, which  Pumpelly  estimated  as  somewhat 
before  8000  B.  C,  the  inhabitants  lived  in  rec- 
tangular houses  built  of  uniform  sun-dried  bricks. 
They  were  skilful  potters,  though  unacquainted 
with  the  potter's  wheel,  making  different  grades 
of  coarse  and  fine  vessels.  These  were  un- 
glazed,  but  often  painted  with  a  definite  series 
of  geometrical  patterns.  They  had  the  art  of 
spinning,  for  whorls  are  found  in  all  strata  from 
the  lowest  up.  They  cultivated  cereals,  for  the 
casts  of  the  chaff  of  wheat  and  barley  are  found 
in  the  clay  of  the  thicker  pots.  At  first  they 
had  no  domestic  animals,  only  the  bones  of 
wild  forms  being  found.  When  ten  feet  of  cul- 
ture strata  had  been  accumulated  the  remains 
of  a  tame  Bos  namadicus,  the  Asiatic  variety  of 
the  Bos  primigenius,  or  urus,  occurred.  That 
this  animal  had  already  been  domesticated  is 
inferred  from  the  less  compact  microscopic  struc- 
ture of  the  bones  modified  by  artificial  condi- 
tions. At  this  time  the  change  of  structure,  if 
not  complete,  was  evident.  It  had  been  for 
some  time  under  the  new  conditions.  The  tur- 
bary pig  appears  about  7500  B.  C.,1  the  turbary 

3  110:  Plate  5,  opposite  pp.  50,  67. 


A  GLANCE  EASTWARD  95 

sheep  about  1500  years  later,  but  preceded  by 
varieties  of  the  great  horned  mountain  sheep. 
The  turbary  cattle  appear  to  have  been  a  small 
variety  of  the  Bos  namadicus,  somewhat  dwarfed 
by  drought  and  hardship. 

The  camel  appears  at  Anau  somewhat  after 
6000  B.  C,  and  seems  to  be  a  means  of  inter- 
course and  transport  far  antedating  the  horse, 
in  a  region  already  showing  signs  of  dessication. 

Spherical  mace-heads  occur  reminding  us  of 
those  used  in  Egypt.  But  no  lance-head  or 
arrow-point  or  other  stone  weapon  was  found  in 
the  lower  levels.  We  do  not  know  how  they 
killed  or  captured  the  larger  animals;  they  may 
have  used  the  sling  or  bolero.  In  the  lowest 
strata  we  find  the  bones  of  young  children,  but 
not  of  adults,  buried  in  a  contracted  position 
under  the  floors  of  the  dwellings.  The  first  ob- 
jects of  copper  and  lead  appear  about  6000  B.  C, 
and  open  the  iEneolithic  period.  Pumpelly 
distinguishes  a  Copper  period,  here  longer  and 
more  distinctly  marked  than  in  Europe.  The 
turquoise  bead  found  in  one  of  the  graves  came, 
in  all  probability,  from  the  Iranian  plateau,  as 
did  probably  the  copper  and  lead  also. 

He  has  shown  us  that  even  on  the  steppe  the 
cultivation  of  cereals  precedes  the  domestication 
of  sheep  and  cattle.     The  nomadic  life  follows 


96  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

instead  of  preceding  agriculture.  The  pioneers 
in  this  region  cultivated  the  zone  of  steppe,  into 
which  rivers  poured  from  the  mountains.  When 
cattle  and  sheep  and  goats  had  multiplied,  the 
herdsmen  drove  them  farther  and  farther  on  the 
rich  pasturage  of  the  boundless  steppe.  Thus 
nomads  gradually  appear.  There  are  also  dif- 
ferent varieties  of  nomadism.  Nomadic  tribes 
were  far  less  active  and  dangerous  neighbors 
even  after  the  domestication  of  the  camel  than 
when,  about  2000  B.  C,  they  had  domesticated 
the  horse.  The  first  herdsman  may  have  dif- 
fered from  the  latter  nomad  almost  as  much  as 
the  most  pacific  sheep-herder  of  our  Western 
plains  differs  from  the  liveliest  cowboy. 

Pumpelly's  time-estimates  have  been  criticised 
by  Doctor  H.  Schmidt,  of  Berlin.1  He  makes 
the  rate  of  growth  far  more  rapid  than  Pum- 
pelly  thought  and  shortens  the  periods.  In  de- 
termining length  of  periods  he  relies  far  more  on 
artifacts  and  less  on  probable  rate  of  accumu- 
lation. The  criticisms  seem  hardly  well  founded. 
Pumpelly's  estimate  of  rate  of  increase  was 
based  upon  a  careful  and  broad  comparison  of 
accumulations  in  the  deserted  city,  Anau,  in 
Merv,  and  other  localities.  They  seem  con- 
servative, but  we  must  recognize  that  such  esti- 

1  111.     Cf.  110:  I,  48. 


A  GLANCE  EASTWARD  97 

mates  are  always  only  approximate.  His  esti- 
mates result  in  a  series  of  dates  generally  in 
close  agreement  with  those  of  most  students  of 
oriental  archaeology. 

In  the  Third  Culture  Epoch  there  was  found 
"copper,  with  sporadic  appearance  of  low  per- 
centage of  tin."  This  describes  well  the  close 
of  the  Copper  period  or  the  beginning  of  the 
Bronze  Age,  the  rest  of  which  is  not  represented 
at  Anau,  the  settlement  being  deserted,  probably 
because  of  aridity.  Pumpelly  thinks  that  the 
last  strata  deposited  before  the  desertion  comes 
down  to  the  Bronze  Age,  and,  assuming  the 
latest  possible  date  for  the  beginning  of  this 
period,  places  it  about  2200  B.  C.  This  is 
almost  surely  much  too  late.  Obermaier  dates 
the  beginning  of  the  Bronze  period  at  4000  B.  C.1 
(If  we  substitute  the  later  date,  2750  B.  C,  for 
Sargon's  region,  the  Bronze  period  would  begin 
about  3000  B.  C,  the  date  accepted  by  Monte- 
lius.2)  Pumpelly  places  the  beginning  of  the 
Copper  Epoch  at  5000  B.  C,  again  agreeing 
with  Montelius.  His  estimates  seem  generally 
somewhat  too  conservative,  as  he  doubtless  in- 
tended they  should  be;  the  earliest  remains  may 
be  considerably  older  than  he  thought.  Investi- 
gations made  during  the  last  twenty  years  seem 

1  D:  I,  545.  i  B:  II,  242;  D:  527. 


98  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

generally  to  lead  us  to  believe  that  the  begin- 
nings of  Neolithic  culture  are  far  older  in 
western  Asia  than  we  had  supposed,  while  in 
middle  and  northern  Europe  they  are  probably 
somewhat  younger  than  we  had  thought.  In 
this  connection  we  may  well  remember  that 
Evans  found  eight  metres  of  Neolithic  remains 
under  the  palace  at  Cnossus,  in  Crete,  and  esti- 
mated their  age  at  about  14,000  years. 

The  culture  at  Anau  is  very  similar  in  all  its 
essentials  to  that  of  the  European  lake-dwellers, 
and  is  much  older.  The  same  cereals  and  the 
same  kinds  of  domesticated  animals  appear  in 
both.  The  brick  houses  are  better  and  the  very 
fine  painted  pottery  is  new  and  peculiar.  These 
and  the  art  of  spinning  and  the  cultivation  of 
cereals  were  brought  hither  by  the  first  settlers; 
their  development  to  this  stage  must  have  taken 
place  elsewhere  and  occupied  a  long  period  of 
time.  Sheep  could  not  have  been  domesticated 
here,  for  they  and  the  goats  are  natives  of  the 
mountains,  and  could  not  survive  wild  on  the 
steppe.  Neither  is  the  pig  a  steppe  animal,  but 
lives  naturally  in  forest  glades  and  along  water- 
courses. Pumpelly  has  evidently  discovered  a 
very  old  and  interesting  station  in  the  spread 
of  this  ancient  culture,  but  not  its  cradle.  This 
was  apparently  in   some  mountainous  region. 


A  GLANCE  EASTWARD  99 

The  nearest  and  most  likely  place  to  search  for 
it  is  somewhere  on  the  Iranian  plateau,  to  which 
the  turquoise  bead  and  the  later-introduced  cop- 
per and  lead  found  at  Anau  also  point. 

Here  at  Susa  (Shushan),  about  one  hundred 
miles  from  the  apex  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  de 
Morgan  excavated  in  a  mound  rising  about 
thirty-four  metres  above  the  level  of  the  plain 
and  continuing  some  six  metres  below  the  sur- 
face, which  has  been  raised  that  amount  since 
the  first  settlement  was  made.1  The  total 
thickness  of  the  remains  is  therefore  about 
forty  metres.  The  lowest  strata  as  yet  have 
been  only  slightly  studied.  The  uppermost 
ten  to  fifteen  metres  cover  a  period  of  about 
6,000  years.  If  the  lower  strata  were  accumu- 
lated at  the  same  rate,  the  first  settlement  was 
begun  about  18,000  years  ago  at  a  conservative 
estimate.  Montelius,  the  best  authority  on 
European  prehistoric  chronology,  basing  his 
conclusions  on  de  Morgan's  discoveries,  places 
the  date  of  the  beginning  of  Neolithic  culture 
in  this  part  of  Asia  at  about  18,000  B.  C,  or 
somewhat  earlier.2 

Over  twenty  metres  of  these  remains  are 
purely  Neolithic.  There  was  the  usual  abun- 
dance of  flint  nuclei,  flakes,  and  utensils.     There 

1 115-120.  2B:  11,168. 


100  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

was  obsidian,  evidently  brought  from  a  distance 
—  de  Morgan  thinks  from  Armenia,  a  thousand 
miles  away.  This  is  not  impossible;  we  shall 
find  that  trade  or  barter  was  far  more  extensive 
at  this  time  than  has  usually  been  supposed. 

Here  again  we  find  abundant  pottery  in  the 
lowest  strata.  It  is  of  a  "dark  brown  pattern 
painted  on  a  pale  ground,  partly  imitating  bas- 
ketry and  textiles,  partly  rendering  plants  and 
animals  with  childish  simplicity.  ...  It  re- 
sembles in  a  striking  way  a  few  widely  scattered 
series  which  are  all  that  have  been  secured 
hitherto  from  a  very  ill-explored  area:  from  a 
Neolithic  site  underlying  the  Hittite  castle  at 
Sakye-Giezi,  in  North  Syria,  from  the  surface 
of  early  mounds  in  Cappadocia,  and  from  low 
levels  of  the  Hittite  capital,  at  Boghaz-Keui; 
and,  more  surprising  still,  from  an  important 
site,  also  Neolithic,  at  Anau,  on  the  northern 
edge  of  the  Persian  plateau  looking  over  into 
Turkestan;  and  at  a  number  of  points  scattered 
over  the  flat  lowland  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Black  Sea,  and  thence  into  the  Balkan  Peninsula 
as  far  south  as  Macedonia  and  Thessaly.  These 
resemblances  are  general  and  their  value  may 
be  overestimated;  there  are  differences  in  detail, 
but  the  general  similarity  seems  to  link  the 
peoples  over  this  wide  area  at  the  same  time  in 


A   GLANCE  EASTWARD  101 

one  region  of  kindred  art  and  culture,  if  not  of 
blood."1 

The  discoveries  at  Susa  and  elsewhere  in  this 
region  seem  to  prove  that  compact  settlements 
of  fair  size  had  arisen  in  western  Asia  long  be- 
fore the  founding  of  Anau.2  Such  settlements 
could  have  been  formed  only  by  sedentary 
peoples  practising  agriculture,  not  by  mere 
wandering  hunters.  Our  definite  knowledge  of 
the  domestic  animals  of  Susa  is  very  small. 
But,  as  we  have  just  seen,  the  peculiar,  fine, 
decorated  pottery  found  in  the  oldest  strata  of 
Susa,  Anau,  and  many  other  localities  scattered 
over  a  wide  area,  is  certainly  a  strong  argument 
for  believing  that  an  agriculture  in  general  very 
similar  to  that  of  the  oldest  strata  at  Anau  was 
wide-spread  over  the  Iranian  plateau,  Asia  Mi- 
nor, and  elsewhere.  Where  or  when  it  began 
we  do  not  know.  We  can  only  conjecture  as 
to  the  place  and  mode  of  its  beginning.  It 
may  not  be  out  of  place  to  mention  a  very  gen- 
eral hypothesis  of  this  sort,  and  this  we  will 
now  attempt  to  frame. 

The  Buhl  moraines,  in  Lake  Lucerne,  are  esti- 
mated as  having  been  deposited  between  16,000 
and  24,000  B.  C,  during  the  Early  Magdalenian 
stage  of  post-glacial  time,  which  would,  there- 

1 124:  121;  123;  D:  526.  - 116:  195/.,  197  Bib. 


102  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

fore,  be  contemporaneous  with  the  earliest  set- 
tlement at  Susa.1  The  climate  of  Europe  was 
then  somewhat  colder  and  much  moister  than 
at  present.  The  ice-cap  extended  much  farther 
south  in  middle  Europe  than  in  Russia  or  Si- 
beria. Under  these  circumstances  central  Asia 
probably  enjoyed  a  much  moister  climate  than 
at  present,  without  extreme  cold.  The  Caspian 
and  Aral  Seas  occupied  a  much  larger  area  than 
at  present,  and  were  very  likely  connected. 
The  Tarim  basin  may  well  have  been  a  great 
lake  surrounded  by  a  zone  of  garden  instead  of 
the  sandy  waste  which  it  is  to-day.  Conditions 
of  increased  moisture  would  have  made  the  now 
parched  regions  of  the  Iranian  plateau  an  ex- 
ceedingly rich  and  favored  region.  Toward  the 
close  of  the  Post-glacial  Epoch  the  mountains 
were  probably  well  forested,  but  alternating 
dryer  times  would  have  brought  open  glades, 
with  lakes  interspersed. 

When  Europe  changed  from  tundra  to  forest 
man  became  largely  a  fisherman,  more  or  less 
settled  at  some  favorable  spot,  and  collecting 
his  vegetable  food  in  all  directions.  The  same 
may  well  have  been  true  of  life  at  this  early 
date  in  Persia.  The  man  hunted  or  fished,  the 
woman  and  the  children  gathered  all  kinds  of 

MO:  281.      . 


A   GLANCE  EASTWARD  103 

animals  and  plant  food,  berries  and  other  fruits, 
acorns  and  other  nuts.  One  of  the  richest 
sources  of  food  must  have  been  the  roots,  tubers, 
and  other  underground  stems.  If  there  were 
any  patches  of  richly  seeded  grasses  or  grains 
on  the  near-by  glade  or  hill,  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  woman  did  not  fail  to  beat  off  the  ripe  seed 
with  a  stick,  and  carry  it  home  with  her.  The 
primitive  family  was  not  dainty  or  particular 
in  its  appetite.  The  women  were  the  first  bota- 
nists, the  first  to  notice  the  nutritive,  medicinal, 
or  poisonous  qualities  of  plants,  and  the  first 
physicians.1 

When  she  turned  homeward  with  her  load  of 
spoil,  some  berries,  seeds,  and  small  bulbs 
doubtless  fell  to  the  ground  and  escaped  her 
notice.  These  grew  and  flourished  in  the  richer 
soil  around  the  hut  or  shelter,  for  all  the  garbage 
could  not  have  accumulated  in  the  hut.  Some 
unusually  observing  woman  noticed  this,  and 
protected  the  plants,  or  even  cultivated  them  a 
little  with  her  digging-stick,  and  pulled  out  some 
of  the  largest  smothering  weeds.  She  began  to 
plant  a  few  others,  and  gradually  started  a  gar- 
den. The  garden  is  older  than  the  farm,  and 
hoe  and  digging-stick  vastly  older  than  the 
plough.     This  woman  had  discovered,  and  al- 

*139:  chap.  II,  146. 


104  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

most  created,  a  new  world  of  science  and  culture 
which  was  to  revolutionize  life. 

Rice  growing  wild  in  large  fields  under  suitable 
conditions  is  still  gathered  by  all  savages.  This 
grain  needed  no  preparation  except  boiling, 
while  wheat  and  barley  must  be  crushed  or 
ground  between  stones,  probably  used  at  first 
for  grinding  dry  nuts.  Peas  and  beans,  many 
vetches,  and  other  members  of  this  family  so 
characteristic  of  the  dryer  uplands,  were  gathered 
very  early,  and  may  have  been  cultivated  before 
wheat.  Melons  and  many  of  the  gourds  always 
must  have  been  eaten.  We  shall  notice  later 
that  the  zone  of  Persia  and  Asia  Minor  lay  on 
the  boundary  line  between  two  great  botanical 
provinces,  a  northern  and  a  southern,  and  fur- 
nished a  very  wide  range  of  plants  for  this 
earliest  experiment  station.1  A  great  variety  of 
plants  were  tested  sooner  or  later,  and  only  a  few 
of  the  very  best  and  most  capable  of  improve- 
ment have  been  retained  to  our  day.  On  the 
steppe  at  a  later  date  wheat  and  barley  were 
most  profitable,  and  most  widely  cultivated. 
But  even  here  hoe-culture  was  for  a  long  time 
the  only  mode.  It  still  exists  in  Africa,  Asia, 
and  Japan;  and  was  the  only  mode  of  culture 
known  in  America  at  the  time  of  its  discovery. 
Hoe-culture  was  at  first,  and  has  generally  re- 

JM:  217. 


A   GLANCE   EASTWARD  105 

mained,  woman's  work;  ploughing  with  cattle 
was  a  man's  job.  This  had  far-reaching  results 
to  which  we  must  return  in  a  later  chapter. 

But  we  must  not  think  that  the  Iranian 
plateau,  with  its  great  zone  of  piedmont  steppe 
stretching  eastward  and  westward  along  its 
northern  border  across  the  continent  of  Asia, 
was  the  only  place  where  agriculture  could  start 
and  reach  a  high  degree  of  development  in  an- 
cient times.  Its  possibility  lay  in  the  habit 
of  the  woman  of  collecting  the  vegetable  food 
and  smaller  animals,  while  the  men  hunted 
and  fished.  Useful  food  plants  furnishing  large 
amounts  of  food  are  to  be  found  in  all  continents, 
and  differ  markedly  in  different  soils  and  cli- 
matic zones.  Hence  even  the  beginnings  of 
agriculture  were  probably  not  confined  to  any 
one  region,  but  were  wide-spread,  manifold,  and 
independent.  The  Chinese  migrating  eastward 
and  southeastward  down  the  great  river  valleys 
from  eastern  Turkestan  may  have  carried  with 
them  the  cultivation  of  wheat,  or  adopted  it  in- 
dependently. The  rice  culture  of  China  may 
have  been  borrowed  from  India  or  indepen- 
dently evolved.  India  and  the  Malay  Archi- 
pelago and  Africa  have  every  one  its  own  agri- 
culture, of  whose  origin  and  early  development 
we  know  nothing. 


106  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

But  western  Asia,  or  more  precisely  the  Iranian 
plateau,  had  another  piedmont  region  beside 
the  zone  stretching  along  its  northern  border. 
This  second  piedmont  zone  of  grass-land,  or 
oasis,  as  Breasted  has  pointed  out,  bends  in  the 
form  of  a  horseshoe  along  the  western  slope  of 
the  Iranian  plateau,  then  northward  and  west- 
ward around  the  headwaters  of  the  Tigris  and 
the  Euphrates,  and  southward  through  Syria.1 
Here  it  dries  out  in  the  great  Syrian  and  Arabian 
deserts.  But  these  also,  as  well  as  the  Arabian 
plateau  stretching  along  the  Red  Sea,  may  have 
been  well  watered  and  inhabitable  in  early  post- 
glacial time.  The  Arabian  plateau  and  its  pied- 
mont zone  in  those  days  may  well  have  been 
an  independent  centre  of  agricultural  develop- 
ment, which  gave  place  to  the  nomadism  so 
characteristic  of  the  Semitic  peoples  only  at  a 
later  date.  Of  the  early  history  of  Arabia  we 
are  still  completely  ignorant.  But  in  the  twi- 
light of  history  we  see  those  Semites  coming 
into  the  Mesopotamian  valley  from  the  west 
while  the  Sumerians  entered  from  the  east. 
Those  two  streams  of  migration,  mingling, 
founded  the  great  Babylonian  Empire,  to  which 
all  oriental  peoples  looked  up  with  an  awe  and 
reverence,  as  well  as  fear,  which  we  can  scarcely 

1 125:  100,  may. 


A  GLANCE  EASTWARD  107 

appreciate.  Evidently,  and  this  is  the  fact  of 
chief  importance  to  us,  parts  of  the  nearer  east 
were  highly  civilized  before  anything  better  than 
savagery  had  developed  in  northern  Europe. 

But  far  older  than  these  cities  of  the  Mesopo- 
tamian  river  valleys  is  the  culture  of  the  forests, 
glades,  lakes,  and  riversides  of  the  plateaus. 
Evidence  seems  steadily  to  accumulate  that  here 
we  are  to  seek  for  the  beginnings  of  agriculture 
and  the  domestication  of  animals  which  were 
slowly  to  change  the  face  of  the  earth  and  the 
life  and  character  of  man. 

Hoe-tillage  of  the  ground  is  evidently  far  older 
than  cattle-raising  or  nomadic  life.  It  had  been 
brought  to  Anau  before  8000  B.  C,  and  had 
probably  already  been  practised  at  Susa  and 
elsewhere  thousands  of  years  earlier.  But  we 
cannot  help  asking  whether  other  plants  may 
not  have  been  cultivated  long  before  cereals. 
Roots  and  tubers  are  much  more  conspicuous 
than  the  smaller  grains.  These  underground 
storehouses  of  nutriment  adapted  to  give  the 
plant  a  quick  and  sure  start,  during  a  short 
spring  period  of  growth  and  flowering,  are  abun- 
dant everywhere.  They  still  form  the  staple 
crop  in  many  parts  of  the  world.  We  remember 
the  potatoes,  sweet  potatoes,  yams,  the  cas- 
sava, and  a  host  of  others.     In  our  northern 


108  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

regions  we  still  cultivate  beets,  turnips,  and  car- 
rots, though  now  becoming  more  and  more 
food  for  cattle.  These  plants  also  are  less 
closely  limited  to  the  steppes  and  plateaus. 
They  occur  all  through  the  mountain  or  shore 
regions,  and  for  this  reason  would  have  been 
likely  to  attract  the  attention  of  "collectors." 

Primitive  woman  had  no  plough,  only  the 
digging-stick,  the  agricultural  implement  of  the 
Australians.  Later  they  learned  to  make  a 
hoe,  sometimes  out  of  a  tine  of  deer's  horn, 
sometimes  of  stone  or  other  material,  something 
half-way  between  a  hoe  and  a  pick.  With  such 
an  implement  a  fair  amount  of  soil  could  be 
broken  up  and  well  stirred.  When  domestic 
animals  were  introduced  into  Africa  the  plough 
followed  only  in  the  eastern  regions;  all  through 
the  rest  of  Africa  the  old  hoe-culture  held  its 
own.  Europeans  introduced  the  plough  into 
America.  As  a  means  of  breaking  up  the  ground 
the  plough  is  infinitely  superior;  for  tillage  and 
cultivation  the  hoe  is  far  more  useful.  When 
wheat  has  once  been  sown  it  cares  for  itself; 
further  cultivation  is  unnecessary  —  it  is  the 
lazy  man's  crop.  Perhaps  that,  with  a  touch  of 
the  spur  of  necessity,  persuaded  the  male  to 
undertake  ploughing.  When  the  plough  was 
invented  many  vegetables  formerly  cultivated 


A   GLANCE   EASTWARD  109 

probably  became  less  profitable  or  attractive, 
and  were  given  up.  A  revolution  took  place  in 
agriculture.  Probably  the  plough  was  at  first 
dragged  by  women.  It  is  impossible  to  say 
just  when  it  was  invented.  It  was  used  during 
the  Bronze  period,  for  it  is  represented  in  rock- 
carvings  of  that  age.  Some  stone  ploughshares 
may  be  Neolithic. 

Studying  European  Neolithic  agriculture  in 
the  light  of  the  methods  of  savage  and  barbarous 
peoples,  or  even  of  our  pioneer  ancestors,  we 
imagine  them  living  on  the  border  of  the  forests 
which  furnished  food  and  wood  for  buildings 
and  implements.  The  first  step  was  to  burn 
and  clear  a  place  where  the  undergrowth  was 
not  too  heavy,  and  to  break  up  the  soil  with 
pick  or  hoe.  Here  the  patch  of  grain  was 
sowed.  The  soil  fertilized  by  the  ashes  gave  him 
a  fair  crop,  but  became  exhausted  after  a  few 
years  of  cultivation,  and  he  was  compelled  to 
break  up  a  new  field.  Some  investigators  have 
thought  that  the  lake-dwellers  used  the  manure 
from  their  cattle  on  their  fields,  but  in  most 
parts  of  Europe  cultivation  of  the  soil  was  prob- 
ably crude  and  superficial.  On  the  chalk  downs 
of  England,  chief  places  of  settlement  by  Neo- 
lithic peoples  in  this  region,  we  find  terraces  and 
narrow  strips  which  may  have  been  prepared  at 


110  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

this  time,  though  their  age  is  very  uncertain. 
They  often  are  of  a  size  and  form  not  well 
adapted  to  plough-culture.  They  have  a  look 
of  permanent  occupation.  These  may  well  have 
been  fertilized.  The  evidence  is  very  uncer- 
tain. When  the  loess  soil  was  of  fair  depth 
cultivation  may  have  gone  on  for  many  years 
without  fertilizers  of  any  sort. 

The  primitive  plough  was  hardly  more  than 
a  pointed  stout  branch  or  stub  of  a  tree,  whose 
longer  fork  was  fastened  to  the  yoke.  It  made 
a  furrow  triangular  in  cross-section,  broad  at 
the  top  and  narrowing  to  an  edge  at  the  bottom. 
It  did  not  "turn"  a  strip,  and  between  two  fur- 
rows a  long  ridge  was  left  unbroken.  Even  in 
Roman  times  cross-ploughing  was  common  or 
usual.  Even  this  rude  culture  needed  the 
strength  of  cattle  to  draw  the  plough.  The 
plough  is  associated  in  our  minds  with  oxen, 
and  the  first  man  who  made  his  cow,  instead  of 
his  wife,  draw  the  plough  was  a  great  benefactor. 

Even  the  domestication  of  cattle  was  less  easy 
than  it  seems  at  first  sight.  Wild  animals  rarely 
reproduce  in  captivity.  Pumpelly  thinks  that 
the  way  toward  the  domestication  of  our  larger 
cattle  may  have  been  paved  by  a  long  period  of 
drought  driving  them  from  the  steppe  into  the 
better-watered  oases,  and  thus  into  association 


A  GLANCE  EASTWARD  111 

with  man.  But  this  could  hardly  have  been 
true  of  the  mountain  sheep  and  goats,  on  which 
man  may  well  have  experimented  before  he  at- 
tempted the  more  difficult  task  of  domesticating 
the  larger,  more  powerful,  and  less  manageable 
Bos  namadicus.  How  did  man  hit  upon  the  plan 
of  castrating  the  bull  and  thus  changing  this  in- 
tractable, ugly  beast  into  the  docile  and  patient 
ox  ?  There  seems  to  be  a  good  amount  of  plausi- 
bility in  Hehn's  brilliant  suggestion  that  this 
may  have  come  about  in  connection  with  some 
ancient  systems  of  religious  rites  and  beliefs.1 
There  is  nothing  impossible  or  very  improbable 
in  this  view.  But  the  very  brilliancy  of  the  con- 
jecture and  the  clearness  with  which  it  is  ex- 
pressed, and  the  wealth  of  learning  used  to  sup- 
port it,  warns  us  against  too  ready  acceptance. 
We  can  only  confess  our  complete  ignorance  and 
wait  for  future  discoveries  as  patiently  as  we 
can. 

At  present  nearly  all  our  knowledge  of  what 
was  going  on  in  this  dim  and  remote  past  must 
be  gained  by  a  study  of  savages  still  holding  the 
customs  of  the  past  in  a  somewhat  or  greatly 
modified  form  and  spirit.  Certain  very  general 
inferences  may  be  made  without  great  danger. 
But  to  frame  clear  and  exact  conceptions  of  life 

'O:  291. 


112  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

in  these  remote  ages  from  these  sources  would 
demand  a  union  of  the  boldest  genius  with 
the  most  wary  caution.  All  these  peoples  have 
changed  greatly  during  past  millennia  both  for 
better  and  worse,  usually  probably  in  the  latter 
direction.  Customs  have  all  been  modified  by 
changed  conditions,  surroundings,  and  infer- 
ences. It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  distinguish 
between  what  is  really  primitive  and  what  is 
degenerate,  perhaps  of  comparatively  recent 
origin.  The  problem  bristles  with  tantalizing 
questions,  which  tempt  us  to  spin  fascinating 
hypotheses  all  the  more  dangerous  because  of 
their  attractiveness  and  apparent  simplicity. 
Our  great  need  is  new  facts  and  discoveries, 
and  a  clearer  knowledge  and  understanding  of 
old  ones. 

We  may  well  connect  and  condense  the  chief 
results  of  our  study  in  this  chapter.  It  seems 
to  be  clear  that  a  culture  essentially  similar  to 
that  of  the  European  lake  dwellers  existed  at 
Anau,  in  the  piedmont  zone,  a  little  north  or 
northeast  of  the  Iranian  plateau,  with  which  it 
had  trade  relations.  The  oldest  turbary  forms 
of  domesticated  animals  appear  here  at  least 
1,500  years  before  the  founding  of  the  Swiss 
lake  dwellings.  They  were  mostly  introduced 
from  some  mountain  region,  the  nearest  prob- 


A   GLANCE  EASTWARD  113 

able  source  being  the  Iranian  plateau,  but  their 
first  domestication  may  have  taken  place  equally 
well  elsewhere  in  western  or  central  Asia,  or 
even  in  Arabia.  Susa  shows  similar  remains 
extending  back  into  a  far  more  remote  past;  and 
the  similarity  or  kinship  of  the  pottery  in  the 
oldest  strata  at  Susa  and  Anau  and  elsewhere 
leads  us  to  believe  that  a  culture  similar  in  other 
respects  also  was  widely  distributed  at  this  time. 
We  can  hardly  doubt  that  agriculture  was  prac- 
tised by  the  founders  of  all  these  settlements. 

We  can  only  frame  conjectures  as  to  the  origin 
of  agriculture.  It  seems  to  have  been  intro- 
duced by  the  women  of  hunting  and  fishing 
tribes.  The  first  agricultural  implement  was 
probably  the  digging-stick,  which  was  followed 
by  the  hoe.  Hoe-culture  is  still  common  in 
Asia  and  Africa.  Finally,  during  the  first  part 
of  the  Bronze  period,  or  perhaps  somewhat 
earlier,  the  plough  drawn  by  cattle  and  guided 
by  a  man  superseded  the  hoe  as  a  means  of 
breaking  up  the  soil  for  the  culture  of  grain. 


CHAPTER  VI 
MEGALITHS 

MEGALITHS,  those  great  stone  monu- 
ments of  prehistoric  time,  have  always 
excited  the  wonder  and  interest  of  all 
observers.1  Under  the  name  of  dolmens  or  stone 
chambers,  cromlechs  or  stone  circles,  tumuli  or 
mounds,  they  form  a  striking  contrast  to  the 
insignificant  and  ephemeral  thatched  huts  of 
wood  and  clay  which  formed  the  homes  of  the 
living.  These  chambers,  especially  those  of  later 
date,  are  often  accompanied  by  circles  or  radi- 
ating lines  of  rude  pillars,  the  Menhirs  or  stand- 
ing stones.  In  the  more  fertile  and  densely 
populated  regions  the  great  blocks  have  been 
removed  and  used  in  the  foundations  of  build- 
ings. They  must  once  have  been  far  more  nu- 
merous. But  Dechelette  reports  nearly  4,500 
as  still  existing  in  France;2  England  contains 
almost  or  quite  as  many;  and  they  are  very 
numerous  in  Denmark  and  Sweden.  We  will 
mainly  follow  Sophus  Miiller  in  his  study  of 
these  monuments  in  Denmark.3 

The    simplest,    and    apparently    the    oldest, 

1  L:  chap.  V.  2  A:  I,  380.  •  G:  cf.  J:  43. 

114 


MEGALITHS  115 

dolmens  are  the  small  rectangular  chambers  con- 
sisting of  four  stones  set  up  on  edge  with  one 
large  one  forming  the  roof.  These  are  usually 
between  5  and  7  feet  in  length,  2  to  3^  feet 
wide,  and  3  to  5  feet  in  height.  One  of  the  end 
stones  is  shorter,  leaving  an  opening  under  the 
roof  through  which  one  may  reach  or  even 
crawl  into  the  chamber.  Somewhat  larger 
chambers  of  the  same  type  and  having  five  or 
six  wall  stones  are  not  uncommon. 

Even  these  small  chambers  were  intended  for 
long  use,  and  to  contain  more  than  one  body; 
some  contain  the  remains  of  a  dozen.  The 
bones  lie  in  layers  covered  with  flint  chips,  or 
in  little  heaps  where  they  have  been  collected 
to  give  room  for  new  interments.  Many  of  the 
smaller  chambers  were  too  short  to  allow  the 
body  to  lie  fully  extended;  in  some  it  was  evi- 
dently placed  in  a  sitting  posture  leaning  against 
the  wall. 

These  smaller  dolmens  were  surrounded  by  a 
heap  of  earth  reaching  nearly  to  the  top  of 
the  side  stones,  but  not  covering  the  roof,  and 
hardly  deserving  to  be  called  a  tumulus.  The 
roof  was  usually  composed  of  one  great  stone, 
flat  below  but  arching  above  and  forming  a 
sort  of  monument.  In  one  chamber  this  roof- 
stone  is  eleven  feet  long  and  three  feet  thick. 


116  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

On  each  side  of  the  doorway  a  stone  is  often  set 
upright  to  keep  back  the  earth  of  the  tumulus, 
and  a  covering  stone  may  be  laid  across  them. 
Here  we  have  a  form  intermediate  between  the 
small  dolmen  without  entrance-stones  and  the 
large  chambers,  which  we  shall  consider  later. 

The  earthern  tumulus  may  be  round  in  out- 
line or  elliptical,  forming  the  long  grave  —  the 
Hunnenbett  of  popular  German  speech.  The 
round  tumuli  rarely  exceed  40  feet  in  diameter. 
They  were  as  a  rule  surrounded  by  a  circle  of 
upright  stones,  now  generally  removed.  The 
long  tumuli  are  rarely  more  than  5  or  6  feet  high, 
and  20  to  30  feet  wide.  The  length  varies 
greatly:  usually  between  50  and  100  feet,  but 
infrequently  from  100  to  200  feet;  one  is  500 
feet  long  with  over  100  of  the  marginal  stones 
still  standing. 

The  chambers  in  the  round  and  long  tumuli 
in  Denmark  are  very  similar,  but  in  the  long 
tumuli  there  are  usually  two  or  more  dolmens, 
often  symmetrically  located.  In  other  cases  it 
looks  as  if  a  tumulus  had  been  lengthened  to 
cover  chambers  added  later.  A  large  amount  of 
variety  in  such  details  is  not  surprising.  More 
rarely  we  find  two  or  more  small  tumuli  side  by 
side,  each  with  one  or  two  chambers.  That 
those  smaller  dolmens  or  chambers  are  the  old- 


'CROUCHING  BURIAL"  (HOCKER- 

BESTATTUNG)  ADLERBORG, 

NEAR  WORMS 


MENHIR,  CARNAC,  BRITTANY 


«&£- 


DOLMEN,  HAGA,  ISLAND  OF  BORUST 


MEGALITHS  117 

est  is  suggested  not  only  by  their  simplicity 
but  even  more  by  the  pottery  and  implements 
contained  in  them,  though  this  is  not  invariably 
true,  as  the  small  dolmens  continued  in  use 
throughout  the  Neolithic  period,  in  some  regions 
far  later.  The  gifts  which  they  contain  are 
usually  not  numerous  and  often  very  scanty. 

The  wide  distribution  of  these  simplest  stone 
monuments  is  exceedingly  interesting.  They 
occur  in  Denmark  and  Sweden,  in  North  Ger- 
many and  Holland,  in  Great  Britain  and  France, 
Portugal  and  Spain,  in  North  Africa,  in  the 
iEgean  Islands,  in  Palestine  and  farther  east- 
ward, in  Thrace  and  Crimea,  along  the  eastern 
shore  of  the  Black  Sea.  They  are  very  numer- 
ous in  India.1  Throughout  this  wide  extent  they 
agree  not  only  in  general  form  and  structure, 
but  also  in  certain  interesting  details.  For  in- 
stance, the  oriental  and  southern  dolmens  fre- 
quently have  a  round  opening  in  the  upper  part 
of  the  slab  closing  the  entrance,  corresponding 
to  the  wide  opening  above  the  door  of  the  Scan- 
dinavian dolmens.  The  difference  in  the  form 
of  the  opening  may  be  explained  by  the  diffi- 
culty of  cutting  a  circular  opening  in  the  hard 
granite  rocks  of  the  northern  area.  There  was 
a  general  unity  of  thought  in  essentials,  espe- 

1  A:  421. 


118  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

cially  in  those  oldest  forms.  There  was  much 
diversity  in  execution  or  expression  in  later 
structures.  Some  of  them  took  the  form  of 
pyramids  in  Egypt.  In  Mycense  we  find  the 
"Tomb  of  Atreus,"  a  magnificent  building  in  the 
form  of  a  beehive.  The  large  chambers,  "Giant 
Chambers"  or  Riesenstuben  of  northern  Europe, 
especially  of  France,  are  connected  with  the 
older  small  dolmens  by  many  intermediate 
forms.  For  example,  if  another  pair  of  stones  is 
added  to  the  sides  of  a  fair-sized  dolmen,  we  have 
a  chamber  six  to  eight  feet  in  length.  Such 
dolmens  always  have  a  covered  entrance  to  the 
doorway  of  at  least  two  pairs  of  upright  stones 
extending  out  through  the  tumulus.  Then  the 
number  of  stones  in  the  sides  of  the  chamber  is 
increased  to  seven,  eight,  or  nine;  and  the  en- 
trance passage  is  at  right  angles  to  the  main 
axis  of  the  chamber,  giving  a  rude  T-shaped  form 
to  the  whole  structure.  The  number  of  stones 
in  the  roof  of  the  chamber  increases  with  its 
length.  Chambers  fifteen  to  twenty  feet  long 
are  not  uncommon,  a  length  of  twenty  to  thirty 
feet  is  rare,  a  very  few  attain  forty  feet.  The 
height  was  between  five  and  seven  feet. 

The  inner  surface  of  the  great  stones  forming 
the  sides  of  the  chamber  is  fairly  flat.  It  could 
have  been  no  easy  matter  to  find  in  any  region 


MEGALITHS  119 

a  sufficient  number  of  suitable  great  blocks  of 
the  right  form.  They  evidently  had  sonis 
method  of  splitting  large  boulders.  In  some 
chambers  both  halves  of  the  same  block  have 
been  found.  These  blocks  could  have  been  split 
by  heat  or  by  freezing  water  in  a  groove  or  by 
wooden  wedges.  But  we  do  not  know  the  exact 
method.  Near  the  top  the  blocks  often  failed 
to  meet  exactly.  Large  holes  were  filled  with 
bits  of  wall  of  small  stones  and  small  chinks 
were  stuffed  with  clay  and  moss. 

It  is  surprising  to  find  that  these  smaller  and 
larger  chambers  were  erected  without  any  deep 
foundation  for  the  upright  stones.  Many  of 
them  have  fallen  from  the  heaving  of  the  frost. 
The  monuments  were  generally  adequately  pro- 
tected against  this  by  the  thick  tumulus. 

The  tumulus  was  enlarged  proportionately 
and  usually  completely  covered  the  chamber. 
Its  height  averages  ten  to  fifteen  feet,  and 
its  diameter  over  ninety.  The  culvert-like  en- 
trance had  to  be  lengthened  accordingly. 

But  one  large  chamber  did  not  suffice  for  suc- 
cessive generations.  It  was  often  extended  or 
additions  were  made  so  that  quite  complicated 
forms  occur.  In  England  we  find  frequently  a 
row  or  cluster  of  small  chambers.  Here  the  roof 
is  sometimes  made  of  successive  layers  of  stone 


120  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

approaching  as  they  ascended  until  one  slab 
covered  the  "false  arch."  In  Brittany  we  find 
great  diversity  as  well  as  complexity  of  form. 
In  some  parts  of  France  the  entrance  continues 
the  main  line  of  the  chamber  instead  of  being  at 
right  angles  to  it.  The  French  have  well  char- 
acterized these  as  "Allees  couvertes." 

Some  of  these  "gallery  chambers"  were  very 
large  and  contained  a  large  number  of  bodies; 
sometimes  from  40  to  60,  in  one  case  100.  The 
tumulus  at  Mont  St.  Michel  measures  115  by 
58  metres,  and  forms  a  veritable  hill.  Thirty- 
five  thousand  cubic  metres  of  stone  were  em- 
ployed in  the  construction  of  the  chamber. 
Other  chambers  are  from  30  to  50  feet  in  length. 
The  celebrated  chamber  at  Bagneux,  25  feet 
long,  is  composed  of  fourteen  great  blocks,  of 
which  three  form  the  roof.  The  great  tumulus 
at  Fontenay-le-Marmion  in  Normandy  covered 
eleven  chambers  in  two  parallel  rows.  All  the 
material  for  these  great  structures  could  hardly 
have  been  found  in  the  same  vicinity.  In  one 
case  it  appears  to  have  been  brought  from  a 
quarry  two  miles  away.  Some  large  stones, 
weighing  thousands  of  tons,  seem  to  have  been 
transported  many  miles. 

Some  of  the  latest  structures  show  a  certain 
amount  of  degeneration.     Certain  galleries  were 


MEGALITHS  121 

apparently  roofed  with  timber.  We  find  "dry" 
masonry,  of  smaller  stones  laid  in  courses  but 
without  mortar,  alternating  with  or  replacing 
the  great  blocks,  especially  in  structures  of 
iEneolithic  or  Bronze  Age.  The  custom  was 
declining  and  soon  after  this  disappeared.1 

The  age  of  these  stone  monuments  can  gen- 
erally be  fairly  closely  determined  by  the  con- 
tents, unless  these  have  been  removed  or  de- 
stroyed by  treasure-hunters,  as  is  often  the 
case.  In  many  cases  the  objects  originally  de- 
posited seem  to  have  been  few  and  insignificant. 
Later,  secondary  interments  were  often  made  in 
tumuli,  but  these  usually  betray  their  later  date 
by  their  position  above  the  original  chamber  or 
near  the  side  of  the  mound.  We  must  keep  in 
mind  that  chambers  in  the  north  containing 
only  stone  implements  may  be  often  of  the  same 
age  as  those  farther  south  containing  copper  or 
even  bronze,  for  metal  made  its  way  northward 
only  gradually.  The  custom  of  building  dol- 
mens seems  to  have  persisted  later  in  England 
than  in  France.  The  English  round  tumuli  or 
barrows  belong  to  the  Bronze  period.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  one  country  should  be  more  con- 
servative than  another,  especially  if  it  is  some- 
what remote. 

JD:  503. 


122  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

In  Brittany  we  find  the  Menhirs  or  "standing 
stones,"  unhewn  pillars,  regularly  accompany- 
ing the  dolmens.  They  are  by  far  most  abun- 
dant in  northwestern  Europe,  but  occur  else- 
where also.  The  largest  known  is  the  Menhir 
of  Locmariaquer  in  Morbihan,  now  fallen  and 
broken.  It  was  almost  21  metres  long,  and 
weighed  nearly  300,000  kilograms.  But  speci- 
mens are  usually  much  smaller.  They  seem  to 
characterize  the  iEneolithic  Epoch  and  the  early 
Bronze  Age. 

Their  meaning  is  often  uncertain.  Some  of 
them  standing  singly  were  probably  erected 
much  later,  serving  merely  to  mark  boundaries. 
When  associated  with  dolmens  they  are  prob- 
ably objects  of  a  religious  cult  associated  with 
the  burial,  rather  than  mere  monuments  to 
the  dead.  They  may  well  be  examples  of  the 
world-wide  pillar-cult.  They  remained  objects 
or  centres  of  worship  until  late  in  historic  time. 
The  church  had  a  long  and  hard  battle  with 
their  cult.  Some  of  them  appear  to  have  been 
thrown  down  and  churches  to  have  been  erected 
over  them.  On  some  of  them  Christian  symbols 
have  been  carved.  Among  the  people  they  are 
still  held  in  reverence  or  awe.  Whatever  may 
have  been  their  origin,  they  must  have  had  some 
religious  significance  or  association. 


MEGALITHS  123 

These  pillars  may  be  grouped  in  circles,  crom- 
lechs, or  in  long  radiating  rows,  alignments. 
Stone  circles  occur  in  the  Mediterranean  region, 
in  Syria,  Upper  Egypt,  and  in  India.  But 
circles  and  alignments  belong  especially  to  Brit- 
tany, Great  Britain,  and  Scandinavia.  The 
most  noteworthy  are  the  three  adjacent  or  con- 
nected at  Carnac,  in  Morbihan,  extending  nearly 
4,000  metres,  and  composed  of  nearly  3,000 
Menhirs.  Stonehenge  and  Avebury  in  England 
are  almost  equally  celebrated.  They  represent 
the  culmination  of  megalithic  development,  but 
are  essentially  places  of  worship  and  assembly 
rather  than  of  burial,  though  tumuli  may  be 
clustered  around  them  like  graves  in  a  church- 
yard. 

The  changes  in  the  mode  of  disposal  of  the 
dead  are  evidently  the  results  of  changed  views 
concerning  the  future  life.  In  early  Paleolithic 
times  man  buried  his  dead  with  the  best  flint 
axe  in  his  hand,  with  his  ornaments  and  a  sup- 
ply of  food,  and  often  a  quantity  of  shells 
brought  from  a  distance  and  evidently  objects 
of  value.  The  dead  man  took  with  him  his 
weapons  and  all  his  wealth.  For  the  living  to 
keep  back  a  portion  of  what  belonged  to  the 
departed  was  robbery,  which  might  be  avenged 
by  all  sorts  of  evils  and  plagues;  for  all  this  ma- 


124  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

terial  wealth  and  ornament  was  as  much  needed 
and  as  useful  there  as  here.  Apparently,  though 
this  is  anything  but  certain,  the  dead  were 
buried  at  first  in  Europe,  extended  at  full 
length,  and  in  the  caves  not  far  from  the  abode 
of  the  living. 

Soon  we  find  them  buried  in  a  crouching  posi- 
tion, with  knees  and  hands  brought  close  to  the 
chin.  Sometimes  we  find  rows  of  shells,  which 
may  have  been  attached  to  cords  or  bands  used 
to  hold  the  body  in  this  forced  position.  This 
mode  of  burial  in  a  contracted  or  crouching  posi- 
tion (Hockerbestattung)  was  usual  in  Europe  in 
Neolithic  time,  but  has  been  discovered  in  all 
continents,  even  in  America  and  Australia. 
Very  different  explanations  of  this  peculiar  cus- 
tom have  been  offered  by  different  observers, 
e.  g.y  that  it  saved  the  labor  of  digging  a  larger 
grave,  an  excellent  economic  argument;  that  the 
dead  was  laid  in  its  Mother  Earth  in  the  same 
position  which  as  a  foetus  it  had  maintained  in 
the  maternal  body,  etc.,  etc.  But  the  predomi- 
nant thought  appears  to  have  been  that  the 
spirit  remained  in,  with,  or  near  the  body,  and 
that  binding  the  body  prevented  the  spirit  from 
walking  and  returning  to  see  the  survivors.  To 
the  same  end  the  most  valuable  possessions  of 
the  dead  had  been  buried  with  him.     This  does 


MEGALITHS  125 

not  necessarily  argue  that  there  was  no  affection 
of  the  living  for  the  departed,  or  no  belief  in 
their  possible  helpfulness.  But  the  community 
generally  felt  that  it  was  a  wise  precaution,  and 
generally  well  to  be  on  the  safe  side.  This  be- 
lief in  the  possible  return  of  the  dead  in  their 
bodily  form  and  presence  is  still  deeply  imbedded 
in  our  modern  minds,  ready  to  spring  up  as  a 
conscious  belief;  and  the  departed  are  still 
rarely  expected  to  bring  good  tidings  or  benefits. 
This  mode  of  burial  continued  common 
through  upper  Paleolithic  time;  was  very  com- 
mon, if  not  the  rule  during  the  Neolithic  period 
in  various  parts  of  Europe.  Pumpelly  found  at 
Anau  children,  and  only  children,  buried  under 
the  floors  of  the  houses,  and  notices  that  this 
custom  was  general  throughout  the  life  of  the 
Kurgan.1  He  gives  instances  of  this  custom 
reported  elsewhere.  Whether  this  custom  was 
as  wide-spread  as  the  pottery  of  Anau  and  Susa 
seems  doubtful.  I  can  find  no  reports  of  it. 
But  conditions  at  Anau  seem  to  have  been  un- 
usually favorable  to  the  preservation  of  these 
perishable  remains.  It  is  not  impossible  that 
we  have  here  one  of  the  ways  in  which  the  fear 
of  the  dead  may  have  been  gradually  dispelled. 
May  we  not  imagine  that  one  of  the  first  steps 

1  110:  I,  40. 


126  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

was  the  refusal  of  the  mother  to  allow  her  dead 
child  to  be  banished  from  the  house?  The 
evidence  is  too  slight  to  allow  of  more  than  a 
guess. 

As  time  went  on  and  communities  became 
more  closely  united  leaders  must  have  arisen 
for  whom  the  people  had  only  affection,  in  whose 
wisdom  and  willingness  to  help  they  had  full 
confidence,  and  who  were  gratefully  remembered 
as  fathers,  elders,  and  wise  in  counsel,  and 
whose  return  would  have  been  gladly  welcomed. 
This  thought  seems  to  be  the  foundation  of  the 
wide-spread  and  ancient  cult  or  worship  of  an- 
cestors. Such  cases  were  certainly  common  at 
a  somewhat  later  date,  as  in  the  Greek  cities, 
where  the  bones  of  the  dead  leader  or  hero  were 
guarded  as  the  chief  protection  of  the  state. 
This  feeling  seems  to  find  expression  in  the  dol- 
men or  house  of  the  dead,  with  a  carefully  pre- 
pared opening  in  the  door  as  if  inviting  the  spirit 
to  free  egress.  Anniversary  feasts  in  honor  of 
the  departed  were  certainly  common  in  ancient 
days.  Close  friendship  and  social  relations  were 
cultivated  with  the  departed  as  knowledge  and 
culture  increased. 

The  Egyptian  pyramids  and  mummies,  the 
graves  and  older  dolmens,  seem  to  testify  to  a 
very  close  and  dependent  relation  between  spirit 


MEGALITHS  127 

and  body.  The  spirit  hovered  around  the  body 
and  returned  to  it,  and  where  the  mouldering 
bones  lay  there  was  the  spirit's  home.  Its  life 
was  a  very  direct  continuance  of  the  life  in  the 
body.  Hence  also  the  food  and  libations  and 
the  rich  burial  gifts.  But  toward  the  close  of 
the  Neolithic  period  we  find  the  great  stone 
chamber  giving  place  to  a  small  cyst  or  vault, 
hardly  more  than  a  stone  coffin,  and  entirely 
underground.  At  the  same  time  the  great  stone 
circles  seem  at  least  to  be  changing  from  burial 
places  to  temples  or  centres  of  worship.  A  new 
method  of  disposal  of  the  dead  has  appeared  in 
different  parts  of  Europe,  in  Brittany,  for  ex- 
ample. Up  to  this  time  the  body  has  been  of 
great  importance;  it  has  been  scrupulously  pre- 
served, and  provision  made  in  the  grave  for  the 
supply  of  all  bodily  needs,  though  the  burial 
gifts  have  steadily  diminished  in  number  and 
value.  Now  the  body  is  burned  immediately 
after  death,  as  if  its  preservation  were  no  longer 
of  any  importance  but  a  clog  and  hindrance 
from  which  the  spirit  was  to  be  set  free  as  soon 
as  possible.  The  custom  of  incineration  gains 
ground  in  Europe  until  in  the  Bronze  Age  it  is 
the  rule  and  inhumation  the  exception.  The 
old  crass  materialistic  view  has  evidently  given 
place  to  a  far  higher  and  more  spiritual  concep- 


128  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

tion  of  life  after  death,  and  probably  also  before 
it.  We  here  catch  a  fascinating  glimpse  of  the 
steady  bold  working  and  tendency  of  the  mind 
of  Neolithic  man.  It  is  only  a  glimpse  of  one 
aspect  of  his  thought  and  tendency.  We  lack 
the  facts  to  enable  us  to  widen  or  deepen  it. 
But  it  is  enough  to  promise  a  broad  field  of 
future  discoveries. 

But  one  fact  leads  us  to  hazard  a  question. 
Not  very  far  in  the  Bronze  Age  the  first  great 
wave  of  Celtic  migration  seems  to  have  broken 
into  northern  Europe,  as  the  Achseans  had  al- 
ready found  their  way  toward  or  into  Greece. 
The  Celts  seem  to  have  had  their  Vale  of  Avalon 
and  Islands  of  the  Blessed,  whither  the  spirits 
of  the  departed  migrated.  We  remember  that 
when  Ulysses  went  in  search  of  the  spirit  of 
Achilles,  and  of  other  comrades  in  the  war  be- 
fore Troy,  he  sought  him  in  no  underground 
world,  but  sailed  far  across  the  seas  into  the 
west.  Such  beliefs,  and  customs  like  incinera- 
tion, are  a  slow  growth,  probably  far  older  in 
origin  than  the  Indo-European  or  Aryan  migra- 
tions, of  which  some  have  thought  them  char- 
acteristic. May  not  this  old  and  wide-spread 
belief  be  merely  a  continuance  of  views  and 
conceptions  already  held  by  our  Neolithic  folk? 

We  have  already  noticed  the  wide  distribu- 


MEGALITHS  129 

tion  of  these  megalithic  structures.1  They 
stretch  along  the  shore  of  the  Baltic,  North  Sea, 
and  Atlantic  Ocean  down  to  the  Mediterranean. 
Here  they  form  a  band  along  the  south  shore. 
We  find  them  also  in  Soudan.  In  Egypt  and 
Greece  a  far  more  precocious  culture  made  it 
possible  to  replace  them  by  pyramids  and 
"treasure-houses."  We  find  them  in  Palestine 
and  farther  eastward,  along  the  Black  Sea,  and 
in  India.  In  Europe  they  follow  the  coast  lines, 
and  do  not  seem  to  have  been  erected  by  the 
dwellers  in  the  valley  of  the  Danube.  Their 
distribution  is  very  similar  to  that  of  the  great 
Mediterranean  race  and  its  extensions,  but  they 
extend  far  beyond  the  boundaries  of  any  one 
tribe  or  people.  They  are  the  expression  of  a 
certain  thought  or  conception  which  spread 
widely.  It  might  be  more  correct  to  say  that 
the  general  underlying  conception  was  prac- 
tically universal,  but  found  expression  in  this 
form  in  one  area,  while  in  other  regions  it  could 
not  find  this  expression  because  conditions  were 
unfavorable. 

It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  say  just  where  the 

first  dolmens  were  built.     Opinions  differ  widely. 

They  could  have  been  built  only  in  an   area 

which  had  a  fairly  large  and  settled  population 

1  B:  II,  102. 


130  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

who  could  unite  in  a  large  and  difficult  work, 
and  had  the  means  of  carrying  it  out.  The 
people  were  agriculturists  who  possessed  no  low 
grade  of  natural  material  or  mental  culture. 
Many  such  general  considerations  lead  us  to 
look  for  their  first  appearance  somewhere  in  the 
region  east  of  the  Mediterranean,  which  was 
evidently  the  home  of  many  other  very  ancient 
forms  of  culture.1 

1  A:  I,  423. 


CHAPTER  VII 
NEOLITHIC  INDUSTRIES 

OUR  very  hasty  glance  at  different  aspects 
of  Neolithic  culture  has  shown  its 
marked  diversity  in  different  regions. 
Its  essential  and  fundamental  characteristic  was 
the  introduction  of  tillage  and  cattle-raising, 
gradually  replacing  the  mere  collecting  stage  of 
hunting  life,  and  accompanying  a  steady  growth 
of  independence  or  control  of  nature's  bounty 
or  stinginess  of  food  supply.  This  change  in- 
creased rather  than  diminished  the  diversity  of 
culture  in  different  regions.  In  the  rich  soil  of 
the  loess  country  and  the  Danube  valley  there 
were  genuine  farms;  in  the  north  cattle  and 
hog-raising  probably  prevailed,  gradually  shad- 
ing over  into  hunting  as  one  neared  the  forests. 
Along  the  Baltic  and  the  great  lakes  of  Sweden 
and  on  all  the  European  rivers  fishing  was  an 
important  source  of  food.  Differences  in  size, 
form,  and  comfort  of  dwellings  tell  the  same 
story.  In  the  north  we  find  half-underground 
huts,  probably  with  shelters  of  logs  or  skins  in 
or  along  the  forests.     At  Grosgartach  and  in 

131 


132  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

the  lake-dwellings  and  elsewhere  we  find  rec- 
tangular houses,  veritable  homes  rather  than 
mere  shelters.  Primitive  man  bound  the  body 
of  his  dead  with  thongs  and  buried  it  away  in 
the  earth.  Then  he  deposited  it  in  a  small 
stone  hut  much  like  his  shelter.  He  enlarged 
and  improved  it.  Finally  the  great  monument 
with  its  circle  and  alignments  seems  to  have 
become  a  temple,  and  the  body,  placed  in  a 
small  cyst  or  vault,  is  completely  buried,  or  is 
burned.  These  marked  changes  in  burial  cus- 
toms and  rites  in  western  and  northern,  not  in 
eastern  or  central,  Europe,  must  have  been  ac- 
companied by  changes  in  the  conception  of  the 
after  life,  whether  we  can  trace  and  interpret 
them  or  not. 

The  same  must  be  said  of  all  industrial 
products.  Every  one  of  them  tells  a  story,  if 
we  can  understand  and  interpret  it.  We  are 
not  surprised  to  find  in  the  late  Paleolithic 
(or  early  Neolithic)  paintings  at  Cogul  women 
dressed  in  waist  and  short  skirt  not  unlike  those 
worn  to-day.  The  dress  represented  in  the 
idols  of  southeastern  Europe  has  persisted  in  the 
peasant  dress  of  certain  isolated  regions,  es- 
pecially in  Albania,  almost  or  quite  into  the 
present.1     We  have  noticed  the  spinning,  weav- 

1  B:  310. 


MODERN  ALBANIAN  PEASANTS  IN  NEOLITHIC  GARMENTS 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES  133 

ing,  and  dyeing  of  the  lake-dwellers,  and  a  sim- 
ilar industry  was  spread  all  over  Europe.  The 
costume  of  the  Bronze  period  has  been  pre- 
served in  the  oak  coffins  of  Scandinavia.1  We 
do  not  know  how  much  it  had  changed  and  im- 
proved since  Neolithic  times.  The  use  of  wool 
had  doubtless  increased  greatly.  Our  northern 
Neolithic  hunters  were  probably  clad  largely 
in  skins  and  furs. 

Two  manufactured  articles  are  of  especial  in- 
terest to  the  archaeologist:  the  stone  axes  and 
the  pottery.  They  occur  in  every  settlement. 
Stone  is  imperishable,  and  clay  well  fired  lasts 
almost  as  well.  They  vary  according  to  age, 
place,  fashion,  and  conditions,  and  form  the 
foundation  for  all  comparative,  "typological" 
study.2  Their  remains  play  the  same  part  in 
archaeology  as  the  characteristic  fossils,  "Leit- 
fossilien,"  in  paleontology,  not  only  determin- 
ing age  but  throwing  light  on  the  migrations, 
relations,  life,  and  thought  of  their  makers. 

The  Neolithic  period  gained  its  name  from 
the  polished  stone  implements  which  then  ap- 
peared. Paleolithic  man  had  learned  by  long 
experience  the  value  of  flint  as  the  best  material 
for  his  tools.  He  had  learned  to  chip  and  flake 
it;  first  by  blows,  then  by  pressure,  until  the 

1  G:  I,  268;  J:  90.  2  B:  I,  398. 


134  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

Solutrean  lance-heads  or  "points"  showed  a 
beauty  of  form  and  finish  unsurpassed  by  the 
best  craftsmen  of  any  later  date.  He  had 
learned  to  give  it  a  fair  cutting  edge  by  small 
"retouches."  It  seems  never  to  have  occurred 
to  him  to  grind  or  whet  the  edge  of  his  tools. 
If  the  axe  thickened  rapidly  from  the  edge  and 
was  somewhat  like  a  wedge,  it  was  a  good  rem- 
edy against  the  brittleness  of  the  flint,  its  great 
defect;  and  he  put  the  more  strength  into  the 
blow.  The  extreme  hardness  of  flint  made 
polishing  very  difficult.  Most  utensils  of  daily 
use  were  not  polished  at  all.  Many  of  the  beau- 
tiful daggers,  genuine  works  of  art,  were  finished 
by  a  uniform,  fine  flaking  down  to  the  close  of 
the  period.  Flint  implements  were  not  polished 
in  Italy,  Greece,  Spain,  and  large  parts  of  east- 
ern Europe;1  they  increase  in  abundance  in 
Scandinavia  and  England.  Other  kinds  of  less 
brittle  but  somewhat  softer  rock  were  generally 
used  for  polished  axes. 

During  the  upper  Paleolithic  period,  especially 
in  the  Magdalenian  Epoch,  daggers,  lance-heads, 
awls,  and  needles  were  made  of  bone.  For 
pointed  implements,  flint,  while  sometimes  used, 
was  far  less  suitable,  except  when  the  point  was 
very  short,  as  in  engraving  and  carving  tools. 

1  H:  20. 


NEOLITHIC  INDUSTRIES  135 

These  bone  implements  were  scraped  into  shape 
and  often  well  smoothed.  It  seems  but  a  step 
from  smoothing  a  bone  to  polishing  the  edge  of 
an  axe,  if  not  of  too  hard  rock.  But  the  chipped 
flint  axe  was  very  good,  and  they  were  accus- 
tomed to  it.  Forrer  thinks  that  the  change 
must  have  been  made  where  flint  was  scarce 
and  pebbles  abundant.1 

In  Scandinavia  the  kitchen-midden  period 
was  followed  by  an  "arctic"  culture,  so  called 
because  of  its  distribution  in  the  far  north. 
Here  we  find  implements  of  slate  or  schist  pol- 
ished only  along  the  edges.  This  seems  like  a 
very  natural  intermediate  stage.  We  do  not 
know  just  where  those  attempts  were  first  made. 
They  may  have  been  made  at  different  points 
in  Asia  and  Europe  and  at  different  times,  and 
thus  there  may  have  been  several  independent 
centres  of  discovery  and  of  radiation. 

The  lake-dwellers  used  a  variety  of  material; 
indeed,  they  seem  to  have  been  quite  expert 
practical  mineralogists.  Characteristic  is  their 
use  of  certain  rocks  which  combined  great  tough- 
ness and  hardness,  and  were  thus  superior  to 
flint;  so  chloromelanite,  saussurite,  nephrite,  and 
jadeite.  These  minerals  are  rare,  and  the  im- 
plements made  of  them  were  small  chisel-like 

'F:  Article  "  Axt." 


136  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

blades,  rarely  exceeding  an  inch  in  length.  They 
were  usually  mounted  in  a  socket  of  horn  fast- 
ened into  a  wooden  handle.  We  shall  see  that 
the  source  of  these  minerals  is  still  anything  but 
clear. 

The  axe  of  the  kitchen-midden1  is  hardly 
more  than  a  disk  struck  off  from  a  flint  nucleus, 
with  two  sides  broken  off  and  the  top  of  the 
triangular  remnant  removed.  The  axe  of  later 
Neolithic  time  was  at  first  nearly  of  the  shape 
of  a  flattened  almond,  but  gradually  changed 
and  took  more  of  the  form  of  a  chisel.  The 
stages  in  this  process  of  change  are  of  value  in 
determining  the  chronology  of  the  period,  and 
will  be  discussed  in  the  next  chapter.  These 
axes  were  rudely  shaped  by  flaking  and  then 
ground  and  polished  on  large  flat  stones,  which 
still  show  the  grooves  left  by  the  implement  as 
it  was  rubbed  back  and  forth.  The  different 
steps  in  shaping  and  finishing  such  axes  are  well 
shown  by  Hoernes  in  specimens  selected  from 
the  rich  collections  made  at  Butmir,  Bosnia. 

The  lake-dwellers  followed  a  different  and 
improved  method.  They  selected  from  the  bed 
of  a  stream  a  smooth  pebble  of  somewhat  flat- 
tened and  elongated  egg  shape.  With  a  flint 
flake  or  saw2  and  sand  they  cut  a  groove  in  the 

■G:  30;  E:  129.  2E:  Plate  60;  A:  506;  96:  330. 


AXES  FROM  LAKE-DWELLINGS  SHOWING  ATTACHMENT  TO   HANDLES 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES  137 

edge,  and  split  the  stone  by  a  sharp  blow, 
somewhat  as  a  peanut  or  almond  falls  apart. 
The  rounded  surface  of  each  half  was  nearly  of 
the  desired  form,  and  only  the  flat  surface  re- 
quired much  shaping.  A  skilful  workman  now 
can  finish  an  axe  of  this  kind  in  half  a  day.1 

We  cannot  trace  the  variety  of  axes  charac- 
teristic of  different  times,  places,  and  uses. 
One,  which  from  its  resemblance  to  a  shoe- 
maker's last  has  been  called  by  the  Germans 
the  "  Schuhleistenbeil"  demands  mention.2  This 
is  a  heavy,  thick,  clumsy  implement,  with  one 
end  edged  or  pointed.  The  lower  surface  is  flat 
or  slightly  concave,  the  upper  nearly  semi-cir- 
cular in  cross-section.  It  reminds  us  somewhat 
of  the  grub-hoe  or  mattock,  and  probably  served 
a  similar  purpose  —  to  break  up  the  ground. 
It  is  very  common  in  the  loess  regions  of  south- 
eastern Europe,  but  in  the  more  stony  soils  of 
the  uplands  was  generally  replaced  by  a  pick 
made  of  a  stout  tine  of  deer's  horn.  Broader 
and  flatter  hoes  are  found,  and  stone  plough- 
shares. We  must  clearly  recognize  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  mattock  and  a  somewhat  sim- 
ilar but  lighter  polished  concave  axe,  with  sharp 
transverse  cutting  edge,  used  along  the  Baltic 
and  elsewhere  for  hollowing  out  boats.     Adze 

*B:  177.  2Figs.  107a,  108. 


138  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

and  mattock  are  similar  in  general  form,  but 
the  carpenter's  tool  is  a  much  finer  instrument 
than  the  agricultural  implement,  and  serves  a 
very  different  purpose. 

Bone  was  still  used  for  pointed  tools  and 
weapons.  A  bundle  of  sharp  pointed  ribs  found 
at  Robenhausen  had  probably  been  used  for 
hackling  flax.  Horn  was  used  for  sockets  for 
the  smaller  chisels,  and  for  a  variety  of  other 
purposes.  Wooden  bowls,  scoops,  and  other 
articles  occur  among  the  remains  of  the  lake- 
dwellings. 

Flint  held  much  the  same  place  in  Neolithic 
industry  as  iron  or  steel  with  us.  Its  quality 
varied  greatly  in  different  localities.  Our  Neo- 
lithic ancestors  had  discovered  that  it  worked 
better  when  freshly  mined  than  when  long  ex- 
posed and  weathered.  Hence  a  mine  of  flint 
of  the  best  quality  was  as  valuable  as  a  field  of 
iron  ore  or  a  gold  mine  to-day.  The  most  cele- 
brated source  of  flint  in  France  was  Grand 
Pressigny,  near  Tours,  Department  of  Indre- 
et-Loire.1  The  color  and  texture  of  this  flint 
enables  us  to  recognize  it  wherever  found.  It 
was  exported  as  far  as  Brittany,  Normandy, 
Belgium,  and  western  Switzerland. 

At  Spiennes,   in  Belgium,   they  sunk  shafts 

1  A:  355,  629. 


NEOLITHIC  INDUSTRIES  139 

sometimes  to  a  depth  of  forty  feet.  Here  hori- 
zontal galleries  extended  out  into  the  layers  of 
chalk  containing  the  best  quality  of  flint.  Sim- 
ilar mines  were  located  at  Grimes  Graves  and 
at  Cissbury,  in  England.1  The  flint  was  ex- 
ported sometimes  in  blocks,  sometimes  as  half 
or  completely  finished  implements.  Around 
Grand  Pressigny  workshops  are  numerous.  But 
they  are  by  no  means  limited  to  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  the  mines.  In  some  localities  the 
manufacture  was  almost  limited  to  one  particular 
article.  Here  the  product  was  exported  in  fin- 
ished form. 

During  the  Bronze  period  Halle  was  a  seat 
of  wealth,  and  the  large  amount  of  copper  found 
here  suggests  that  the  production  of  salt  had 
begun  here  before  the  close  of  Neolithic  times. 
Hoernes  says  that  the  production  of  salt  at 
Hallstadt,  a  source  of  great  wealth  and  luxury 
during  the  earliest  Iron  Epoch,  and  of  no  small 
extent  during  the  Bronze  period,  had  its  begin- 
nings in  Neolithic  days.  The  value  of  salt  in 
trade  or  barter  can  hardly  be  overestimated. 

A  very  small  amount  of  gold,  mostly  in  the 
form  of  beads,  has  been  found  in  the  Neolithic 
monuments  of  France  erected  at  the  very  close 
of  this  period.     Occurring  native  in  small  nug- 

lM:  347. 


140  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

gets  in  the  beds  of  streams  and  rivers  of  many 
parts  of  Europe,  its  color  and  malleability  must 
have  attracted  the  notice  of  the  searchers  after 
new  material  for  implements.  Large  nuggets 
were  found  in  Spain  at  a  much  later  date  with 
callais,  a  mineral  resembling  turquoise,  which 
occurs  from  Portugal  to  Brittany.1 

Objects  of  copper  were  found  by  Pumpelly  at 
Anau  contemporary  with  the  appearance  of  tur- 
bary sheep,  about  6000  B.  C.2  It  appears  in 
Egypt  perhaps  1,000  years  later.  We  find  traces 
of  it  in  the  oldest  city  of  Troy  (Hissarlik).  It 
may  well  have  entered  southeastern  Europe  by 
way  of  Troy,  or  northward  from  Greece  through 
the  Balkan  Peninsula  to  the  Danube  valley.  A 
more  westerly  route  lay  open  through  Italy,  or 
the  islands  west  of  it,  into  Spain.  Native  me- 
tallic copper  seems  to  fail  in  Europe  proper, 
but  mines  for  ore  were  opened  in  Tyrol,  and 
probably  elsewhere,  before  the  end  of  the  period. 

Copper  was  very  useful  for  ornaments,  es- 
pecially rings,  armlets,  and  bracelets ;  for  pointed 
objects  like  needles,  pins,  awls,  and  even  dag- 
gers; to  a  certain  extent  for  knives  and  razors. 
Copper  axes  were  modelled  at  first  after  old 
stone  patterns.  This  metal  had  one  fatal  de- 
fect, however;  it  would  not  hold  an  edge.     Cop- 

1  A:  627;  B:  207.  2 110:  50  (chart). 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES  141 

per  utensils  were  beautiful,  but  generally  less 
useful  than  similar  ones  made  of  stone.  They 
were  largely  for  display  and  luxury,  though  this 
may  hardly  be  true  of  its  use  in  Egypt  and  the 
Orient.  In  Europe  it  could  not  shake  the  hold 
of  the  old,  established  flint.  When  the  copper 
ore  contained  impurities  of  antimony  or  zinc, 
the  alloy  was  harder.  Then  we  find  a  very 
small  percentage  of  tin,  which  slowly  increases. 
There  must  have  been  long  searching  and  ex- 
perimenting before  the  classical  recipe  for  bronze, 
ninety  per  cent  copper  and  ten  per  cent  tin,  was 
established.  We  cannot  well  speak  of  a  new 
copper  culture  or  period.  This  began  with  the 
introduction  of  the  harder  and  more  beautiful, 
but  always  rare  and  expensive  bronze.  Still 
the  great  characteristic  of  the  Bronze  Age  lay 
not  so  much  in  the  introduction  of  a  new  metal 
as  in  the  wider  relations,  communications,  ex- 
change of  goods,  and  knowledge,  and  freer 
movements  of  individuals  and  peoples,  which 
had  brought  it  about.  The  discovery  of  metals, 
of  salt,  of  minerals,  and  other  materials  useful 
for  ornament  and  of  the  Baltic  amber,  was 
gradually  furnishing  considerable  material  which 
could  be  readily  exchanged  for  the  products  of 
other  sometimes  distant  and  more  advanced 
provinces  and  lands.     The  centres  of  distribu- 


142  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

tion  were  often  at  some  or  considerable  distance 
from  the  sources  of  the  raw  material,  so  es- 
pecially in  the  case  of  flint  implements.  The 
location  of  the  seat  of  manufacture  and  distri- 
bution depends  largely  on  freedom  and  ease  of 
communication.  This  leads  us  to  glance  at 
trade  and  trade-routes  during  this  period. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  means  of 
transportation  were  few  and  inadequate.  The 
wheeled  cart  appeared  during  the  Bronze  period, 
but  we  have  no  proof  of  its  use  earlier.  The 
horse  was  not  yet  domesticated  in  Europe,  and 
did  not  come  into  use  in  the  Orient  much  be- 
fore 2000  B.  C.1  Cattle  may  have  been  used 
as  beasts  of  burden  at  an  early  period,  but  of 
this  we  know  nothing.  Roads  of  a  certain  kind, 
often  probably  hardly  more  than  mere  trails, 
almost  certainly  existed,  especially  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  great  stone  monuments  and 
larger  villages.  The  great  bar  to  free  communi- 
cation was  the  forest.  To  avoid  this  almost 
impassable  barrier  the  roads  and  trails  seem 
usually  to  have  kept  to  the  uplands,  especially 
those  where  the  chalk  prevented  a  heavy  forest 
growth.  Certain  river  valleys,  like  that  of  the 
Thames,  were  heavily  forested  almost  or  quite 
to  the  shore,  and  hardly  inhabited  at  this  time. 

1 124:  105. 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES         143 

But  when  the  forest  drew  back  somewhat  from 
the  water's  edge  there  was  a  most  attractive 
place  for  human  settlement.  The  river  bottoms 
were  fertile  and  easy  of  cultivation.  There  was 
grass  for  herds,  wood  for  buildings  and  fuel. 
The  rivers  swarmed  with  fish  down  to  recent 
times,  and  there  was  a  great  variety  and  abun- 
dance of  smaller  animal  life.  Such  valleys 
formed  natural  routes  of  trade  and  migration.1 
We  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  the  earliest 
settlers  of  Sweden  made  their  way  from  shore 
to  interior  along  the  rivers  and  lakes,  whose 
shores  are  dotted  with  settlements  of  this  age.2 
Dechelette  tells  us  that  this  was  true  of  the 
grouping  of  the  Neolithic  stations  of  France  in 
three  great  provinces  in  the  basins  of  the  Seine, 
the  Garonne,  the  Rhone,  the  Saone  and  the 
Loire.  We  remember  the  lake-dwellers.  The 
valley  of  the  Danube  has  been  the  great  thor- 
oughfare since  the  arrival  of  man  in  Europe. 
The  great  ancient  civilizations  of  Egypt  and 
Chaldea  arose  in  the  valleys  of  the  Nile  and  the 
Euphrates. 

We  know  that  the  people  of  the  shell-heaps 
must  have  ventured  some  distance  from  shore, 
fishing  for  cod.  The  transition  from  Paleolithic 
to  Neolithic  might  almost  be  characterized  as  a 

'B:  11,468;  D:  511.  SG:  60. 


144  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

time  of  change  from  a  hunting  life  to  one  very 
largely  of  fishing.  Long  before  this  emigrants, 
probably  from  Asia  Minor,  had  sailed  out  into 
the  Mediterranean  and  settled  Crete.  Here, 
before  3000  B.  C,  a  veritable  sea-power  had 
arisen  carrying  on  trade  with  Egypt  and  the 
shores  of  the  iEgean.  The  voyage  of  the  Argo- 
nauts, a  "much-sung"  story  and  saga  in  Homer's 
time,  may  well  have  had  a  historical  foundation 
in  expeditions  for  trade  and  plunder  along  the 
shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  up  its  rivers,  and  ex- 
tending as  far  as  distant  Colchis.  Hence  the 
importance  of  Troy  in  ancient  times  and  of 
Constantinople  to-day. 

Returning  to  the  Baltic  region,1  we  find  that 
a  cave  on  the  island  of  Stora  Karlso,  close  to 
the  west  shore  of  Gothland,  contained  Neolithic 
deposits  nearly  three  metres  thick.  In  the 
upper  layers  there  were  remains  of  domestic 
animals,  in  the  lower  only  wild  forms.  This 
island  lies  some  thirty  miles  from  Oland,  just 
off  the  east  coast  of  Sweden.  Montelius  tells 
us  that  before  the  end  of  the  Neolithic  period 
there  was  communication  between  Sweden  and 
Finland,  as  well  as  with  Denmark  and  Ger- 
many; that  trade  between  these  regions  was 
active,   and  that  there  is  reason  for  thinking 

1  G:  16,  24. 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES  145 

that  there  was  communication  between  the 
west  coast  of  Sweden  and  England.  It  seems 
highly  probable  that  boats  were  creeping  along 
the  coast  of  Spain  and  France  from  harbor  to 
harbor,  although  the  evidence  is  here  less  clear 
and  compelling. 

Our  knowledge  of  Neolithic  boats  is  still  very 
incomplete.1  Those  of  the  lake-dwellers  seem 
to  have  been  usually  hardly  more  than  dug- 
outs hollowed  by  fire.  One,  however,  from 
Lake  Chalain  (Jura)  was  about  thirty  feet  long 
and  two  and  one-half  wide,  made  out  of  an  oak- 
trunk.  Such  boats  served  well  for  river  navi- 
gation, but  were  too  shallow  and  clumsy  for 
the  open  sea.  It  would  have  been  a  compara- 
tively easy  matter  to  add  one  or  two  planks 
along  each  side  of  such  a  dug-out  and  thus  build 
up  a  fairly  seaworthy  craft.  The  rock-sculp- 
tures of  Bohuslan,  Sweden,  which  probably  date 
from  early  in  the  Bronze  Age,  represent  boats  of 
fair  size  carrying  as  many  as  thirty  men.2 

The  wares  exchanged  in  this  trade  were  lim- 
ited in  material  and  value.  Metals  and  metal- 
lic objects  were  still  unknown,  except  as  copper 
and  gold  came  in  before  the  end  of  the  period. 
Still,  there  were  many  objects  which  met  a 
fairly  wide  demand.     We  have  already  seen  that 

1  B:  11,483.  2G:  127. 


146  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

different  lake-dwellings  differed  markedly  in 
their  products.  Some  were  almost  purely  agri- 
cultural. In  others  we  find  remains  of  pottery 
evidently  manufactured  on  the  spot  in  larger 
quantities  than  the  village  could  use.  Much  of 
this  must  have  been  exported  along  the  lake, 
perhaps  farther.  Schliz  distinguished  at  Gros- 
gartach  a  rude  home-made  pottery  from  a  finer 
ware  apparently  brought  from  some  centre  of 
finer  and  more  artistic  work.  The  Neolithic 
housewife  was  probably  very  proud  of  this 
"china."  The  finer  grades  of  cloth  manufac- 
tured at  Robenhausen  and  elsewhere  were  prob- 
ably carried  far  and  wide,  but  it  is  impossible 
to  trace  it.  The  flint  mined  at  Grand  Pressigny 
was  transported  to  greater  or  less  distances,  as 
well  as  manufactured  at  the  mouth  of  the  mine. 
At  the  various  workshops  the  implements  were 
made  in  great  numbers  and  still  more  widely 
disseminated.  This  was  equally  true  of  flint 
regions  in  other  parts  of  Europe.  Stone  arm- 
rings,  mace-heads  and  other  fine  articles  found 
sparsely  in  northern  Europe  may  well  have  been 
copies  of  a  few  articles  brought  from  Italy  or 
even  farther.1 

The  nephrite  and  jadeite  of  the  lake-dwellings 
were  long  supposed  to  be  imports  from  eastern 

1  H:  27. 


\ 


^ 


wu 


K^|iitihi|nuV         K 
1  Mfflilll'        * 


i&IU 


_/ 


rto»«®s 


rt4r 


mW/BJ 


* 


;*5   ->-    * 


BOATS  FROM  ROCK  CARVINGS  IN  BOHUSLAN,  SWEDEN.  (EARLY 
BRONZE  AGE) 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES         147 

Asia  —  until  it  was  discovered  that  the  material 
of  many  of  those  implements  differed  in  micro- 
scopic structure  from  the  Asiatic,  and  then  were 
supposed  to  be  of  indigenous  material.  Prob- 
ably both  extreme  views  are  untenable.  A  cer- 
tain amount  of  communication  with  the  Orient 
is  shown  by  the  occurrence  of  rings  made  of 
recent  shells  of  Tridacna  or  Spondylus  in  Egypt, 
throughout  the  Mediterranean  region,  in  France, 
and  occasionally  in  middle  Europe.  The  ma- 
terial apparently  came  from  the  Red  Sea  or  the 
Indian  Ocean.  The  same  is  true  of  a  shell  of 
Meleagrinia  found  in  a  hut-foundation  in  Riva- 
tella,  Italy.1  Ornaments  in  the  form  of  Medi- 
terranean shells  strung  as  necklaces  are  not  un- 
common in  France,  and  occur  elsewhere.  The 
Mediterranean  lands  were  in  close  communica- 
tion with  Egypt  and  Asia  Minor;  Spain  with 
Africa,  which  furnished  ivory  and  carved  ostrich 
egg-shells  carried  farther  north  in  rare  instances. 
Stone  palettes  similar  to  those  found  in  Egyptian 
graves  occur  in  southern  France  and  elsewhere. 
More  careful  search  and  study  will  doubtless 
greatly  increase  the  number  of  similar  illustra- 
tions. 

Scandinavia  was  already  showing  its  apprecia- 
tion of  beauty  of  form  and  finish,  which  made 

1 186:  168. 


148  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

its  products  unsurpassed  during  the  Bronze 
period.  Its  marvellous  flint  daggers  and  ham- 
mer-axes were  widely  distributed  and  excite 
our  admiration  to-day.  But  the  product  which 
it  was  later  to  export  to  Greece  and  Italy  in 
payment  for  the  metal  and  art-treasures  of  the 
south  was  amber,  an  admirable  material  for 
jewelry,  easily  cut,  transparent,  of  various  hues, 
and  taking  a  brilliant  polish.  So  Homer  speaks 
of  a  royal  necklace,  "golden,  adorned  with  am- 
ber, like  a  blazing  sun."  Far  back  in  Neolithic 
times  we  find  jars  containing  large  quantities 
of  amber  in  the  form  of  rude  beads.  One  such 
hoard  contained  4,000  articles,  and  weighed  17 
pounds.  The  amber  was  evidently  used  for 
necklaces,  and  was  common  in  the  graves  of 
the  earlier  epochs.  It  seems  to  have  made  its 
way  slowly  over  North  Germany.  Amber  beads 
occur  very  sparingly  in  the  lake-dwellings. 
During  the  Bronze  period  it  disappears  largely 
in  Scandinavian  graves  and  is  here  less  used  for 
ornaments,  but  appears  in  Greece  and  Italy, 
where  its  beauty  and  possibilities  could  be  prop- 
erly appreciated.  The  value  of  amber  in  Scan- 
dinavia as  an  article  of  export  rose  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  inhabitants  largely  gave  up  the 
use  of  it  and  exchanged  it  wholesale  for  the 
more  attractive  and  useful  metal.     During  this 


NEOLITHIC  INDUSTRIES         149 

period  there  was  a  regular  trade-route  between 
the  Baltic  and  the  Mediterranean. 

As  Hoernes1  says,  it  was  this  new  trade  which 
brought  with  it  the  close  of  the  Neolithic  period 
in  northern  Europe.  But  the  change  from  the 
age  of  stone  to  that  of  bronze  was  anything  but 
abrupt  or  sudden;  in  fact,  it  extended  over  more 
than  1,000  years.  It  was  apparently  not  brought 
about  by  the  invasion  of  a  conquering  race, 
though  it  was  accompanied  and  followed  by 
marked  change  and  shifting  of  the  population 
of  central  Europe.  First  we  find  a  few  copper 
ornaments  and  implements  stealing  into  France 
and  southern  Europe.  Then  the  metal  becomes 
more  abundant  as  people  increase  in  wealth  and 
can  afford  luxuries.  Then  bronze  comes  in  from 
southeast  and  south,  and  very  slowly  north  of 
the  Alps.  It  meets  the  current  of  amber  from 
the  north. 

Thus  the  two  most  beautiful,  precious,  and 
desirable  materials  of  the  time  have  come  to- 
gether. Both  are  easy  of  transport.  A  trade 
which  has  long  been  preparing  or  proceeding 
on  a  small  scale  expands  rapidly,  perhaps  sud- 
denly, and  ushers  in  a  new  period,  which,  after 
all,  chiefly  carries  on  or  brings  into  prominence 
that  which  had  begun  or  advanced  during  the 
preceding  age. 

1  B:  I,  513. 


150  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

More  interesting  and,  perhaps,  more  im- 
portant than  exchange  of  flint  axes  and  amber 
is  the  spread  of  patterns,  methods,  influences; 
of  new  ideas  and  stimuli  from  mind  to  mind 
and  people  to  people.  A  new  implement,  like 
the  mace-heads  and  arm-rings,  of  which  we  have 
spoken;  a  new  form  of  axe  or  dagger;  the  form 
and  ornament  of  pottery;  the  building  of  dol- 
mens or  the  spread  of  immigration  with  the  ac- 
companying change  of  cult  and  thought  —  all 
these  brought  not  only  economic  improvement 
but  growth  of  mind.  Sophus  Miiller,  and  Mon- 
telius  in  a  less  degree,  may  have  been  somewhat 
extreme  in  their  emphasis  on  the  importance  of 
oriental  and  Mediterranean  influences  and  lead- 
ership, but  their  main  thesis  was  correct.1  Civi- 
lization and  culture  were  far  older  in  the  Orient 
than  in  Europe,  and  far  more  advanced  south 
than  north  of  the  Alps.  These  were  the  cen- 
tres of  radiation  of  ideas  and  stimuli  as  well  as 
patterns,  inventions,  and  discoveries. 

This  does  not  mean  that  northern  Europe 
was  a  passive  recipient.  It  accepted  and 
adopted  whatever  and  only  what  it  would,  and 
probably  refused  many  a  valuable  suggestion. 
In  many  cases  it  improved  on  the  patterns  or 
example  of  its  teacher  and  inspirer.     The  art  of 

1  H:  49. 


NEOLITHIC  INDUSTRIES         151 

polishing  stone  implements  and  the  use  of  bronze 
may  not  have  been  indigenous  in  Scandinavia; 
but  here,  as  time  went  on,  genuine  works  of  art 
were  produced  superior  to  any  in  the  world, 
far  more  artistic  than  the  beautiful  technique 
of  the  Egyptians.  Prehistoric  domestic  animals 
were  almost  certainly  introduced  from  the  East. 
But  the  lake-dwellers  usually  improved  the 
breed  by  intercrossing  with  forms  derived  from 
their  own  fauna.  They  increased  the  list  of  cul- 
tivated plants.  The  idea  or  conception  passed 
from  tribe  to  tribe,  but  the  new  stimulus  did 
its  fermenting  work  differently,  according  to  the 
mind  or  medium  into  which  it  fell.  There  was 
always  readaptation  and  more  or  less  change. 
To  be  a  wide  borrower  and  at  the  same  time 
to  usually  improve  on  one's  teacher  requires 
something  very  close  to  genius,  though  the  origi- 
nality may  be  less  obtrusive.  We  have  no  reason 
to  be  ashamed  of  our  Neolithic  ancestors. 

The  result  of  this  exchange  of  products  and 
ideas  will  be  more  apparent  during  the  next 
period.  Trade-routes  and  lines  of  communi- 
cation will  then  become  far  more  clear  and 
fixed.  But  it  is  important  to  notice  that  these 
routes  are  already  opening  in  all  directions, 
perhaps  more  numerous  because  still  experi- 
mental, tentative,  and  somewhat  vague.     The 


152  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

routes  of  transportation  during  prehistoric  times, 
as  usually  in  pioneer  periods,  were  mainly  along 
river  valleys.  Where  basins  almost  or  quite 
touch  one  another  centres  of  contact  and  dis- 
tribution naturally  arise.  Hence  the  prosperity 
of  the  Department  of  Saone-et-Loire,  in  France. 
A  study  of  any  good  relief -map  of  Europe  will 
show  the  chief  routes  of  trade  almost  at  a  glance. 
The  great  east-and-west  artery  is  the  valley  of 
the  Danube,  with  its  tributaries  extending  far 
northward,  almost  touching  the  headwaters  of 
rivers  flowing  into  the  North  Sea  or  Baltic. 
The  westernmost  north-and-south  route  is  by 
sea  along  the  Atlantic  coast  from  Spain  to  Eng- 
land or  Denmark.  A  second  was  formed  by 
the  Rhone  and  Rhine,  eastward  and  parallel  to 
the  French  highlands  extending  from  the  Medi- 
terranean to  Belgium,  broken  by  the  pass  of 
Belfort.  A  third  ran  up  the  valley  of  the  Elbe 
and  down  the  Moldau  to  the  Danube.  This 
was  the  most  important  route  in  Europe,  es- 
pecially for  amber.  A  fourth,  from  the  Baltic 
to  the  Black  Sea,  followed  the  Vistula  and  the 
Dniester.  From  ancient  times  the  Black  Sea 
and  its  tributaries  have  been  the  great  route  of 
communication  between  the  iEgean  and  southern 
Russia  as  well  as  parts  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula. 
During  the  greater  part  of  the  Neolithic  period 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES  153 

it  was  probably  only  a  sluggish  and  irregular 
current  of  trade  which  trickled  along  most  of 
these  routes.  But  it  was  the  beginning  and 
promise  of  larger  and  better  things,  and  must 
not  be  despised  or  neglected. 

In  any  study  of  the  industries  of  this  period 
the  manufacture  of  pottery  is  of  the  greatest 
interest  and  most  fundamental  importance. 
Pottery  is  to  the  archaeologist  what  character- 
istic fossils  are  to  the  paleontologist.  It  is  al- 
most indestructible.  In  its  texture,  form,  and 
ornament  it  affords  wide  scope  for  individual  or 
tribal  skill  and  invention,  and  yet  over  wide 
areas  the  general  type  shows  a  remarkable  unity 
and  persistency.  A  single  sherd  may  often  tell 
a  long  and  reliable  story.  The  pottery  of  the 
Mediterranean  basin  and  of  many  oriental  locali- 
ties is  a  fairly  sure  guide  to  the  age  of  a  long- 
buried  settlement  and  to  the  relations  of  its 
people  with  other,  often  distant  regions.  The 
chronology  and  much  of  the  history  of  Egypt, 
Troy,  and  Crete,  and  many  ancient  settlements 
of  Greece  and  Italy,  are  based  largely  on  the 
study  of  their  pottery.  It  is  far  more  expressive 
and  informing  than  the  average  stone  or  bone 
implement. 

The  time  is  not  yet  ripe,  however,  for  such 
deductions   from   the   study   of  the  pottery  of 


154  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

northern  and  middle  Europe.  A  good  founda- 
tion has  been  laid,  much  material  gathered 
which  is  being  built  up  into  a  firm  system.  But 
in  this  pioneer  work  many  rash  generalizations 
have  been  based  upon  a  foundation  of  facts 
drawn  from  a  very  narrow  area,  often  incom- 
pletely understood.  Here  we  must  proceed  cau- 
tiously and  can  give  only  a  very  brief  and  in- 
adequate outline  sketch  of  the  most  important 
results  in  which  we  may  have  a  fair  degree  of 
confidence  and  which  are  needed  in  our  further 
study. 

Pottery  appears  first  in  the  transition  epoch 
from  Paleolithic  to  Neolithic,  at  Campigny  and 
in  the  kitchen-middens.  Long  before  this  time 
there  must  have  been  containers  for  fluids.  A 
concavity  in  the  rock  may  have  been  the  first 
reservoir  and  a  mussel-shell  the  first  drinking- 
cup.  Wherever  gourds  occurred  they  were 
doubtless  hollowed  out  and  made  most  con- 
venient jars  and  dishes.  Vessels  of  bark  and 
wood  probably  came  into  use  early  in  the  north. 
Skins  of  animals  tightly  sewn  with  sinew  and 
with  well-greased  seams  formed  excellent  bot- 
tles, still  used  in  the  Orient.  Where  the  art  of 
plaiting  twigs,  splints,  or  reeds  into  mats  and 
baskets  had  been  discovered,  it  was  not  a  long 
step  to  coat  the  inside  with  clay  and  dry  or 


POTTERY  FROM  NEOLITHIC  GRAVES 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES  155 

finally  burn  it  before  the  fire.  The  potter's 
wheel  did  not  come  into  use  until  the  Bronze 
period.  Pottery  had  been  used  in  the  Orient 
long  before  this  time.  It  is  found  well  made 
and  beautifully  decorated  in  the  oldest  strata 
at  Susa.  The  art  may  have  been  introduced 
from  Asia  or  lost  during  the  long  migration 
and  then  reacquired.  Here  we  are  still  in  the 
dark. 

The  pottery  of  northern  Europe  can  be  dis- 
tributed into  a  few  groups  or  general  types, 
every  one  of  which  is  wide-spread  and  fairly  dis- 
tinct, though  mixture  or  combination  of  types 
is  not  uncommon,  especially  along  the  bound- 
aries of  distribution  where  two  types  meet. 
There  is  much  difference  of  opinion  and  discus- 
sion concerning  details,  but  general  agreement 
as  to  fundamentals  and  essentials.1 

Intermediate  or  "hybrid"  forms  also  occur. 
The  classification  is  hardly  natural  and  is  re- 
sponsible for  much  confusion  and  dispute.  It 
can  have  only  temporary  and  provisional  value. 
These  three  groups  are: 

1.  Banded  pottery,  Ceramique  rubanee,  Band- 
keramik. 

2.  Corded  pottery,  Ceramique  cordee,  Schnur- 
keramik. 

1  A:  547;  D:  482. 


156  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

3.  Calyciforin  pottery,  Vases  calictforms>  Zo- 
nenbecher. 

They  differ  mostly  in  ornamentation,  but  often 
also  as  distinctly  in  form. 

1.  Banded  pottery  occurs  all  over  Europe  ex- 
cept northeast  of  the  Oder,  perhaps  also  in  Great 
Britain.  Its  shape  is  usually  that  of  a  sphe- 
roidal gourd  with  the  upper  fourth  removed; 
and  its  system  of  ornament  may  have  been 
derived  from  the  system  of  cords  by  which  the 
jar  was  once  suspended.  Sometimes  we  find  a 
low  neck,  rim,  or  collar  around  the  large  mouth. 
The  ornament  in  what  seems  to  be  its  most 
primitive  form  consists  of  lines  marked  in  the 
clay,  arranged  parallel  to  one  another  in  bands 
covering  most  of  the  body  of  the  jar.  These 
bands,  either  broad  or  narrow,  run  in  a  zigzag 
or  saw-tooth  pattern  horizontally  around  the 
base.  By  doubling  each  saw-tooth  we  get  a 
diamond-shaped  area.  Even  this  simple  orna- 
ment admits  of  a  large  variety  of  patterns.  But 
the  bands  may  be  curved  instead  of  angular, 
forming  scrolls,  meanders,  or  spirals.  Logically, 
these  should  represent  the  latest  development 
of  the  type.  But  the  spiral  may  yet  prove  to 
be  actually  older  than  the  angle.  The  bands 
may  be  raised  and  projecting  (Bosnia)  or  be 
merely  painted  on  a  flat,  sometimes  burnished, 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES  157 

surface.  The  incised  lines  may  be  plain  or 
filled  with  a  white  material  (encrusted).  The 
briefest  consideration  shows  that  we  have  here 
a  very  generalized  type  or  group  of  types  which 
made  its  first  appearance  in  Europe  on  the  lower 
Danube  and  then  underwent  development  by 
simplification  or  sometimes,  perhaps,  by  in- 
creased complexity,  as  it  radiated  from  this 
centre,  becoming  more  and  more  modified  as  it 
went  westward  or  northward. 

The  banded  pottery  of  southwest  Germany 
and  the  Rhine  region  is  found  in  dwellings  as 
well  as  graves,  usually  accompanied  by  the 
mattock  or  the  deer-horn  pick,  but  lance-heads 
fail.  The  rectangular  houses  belonged  to  peo- 
ple of  a  settled  and  quite  advanced  agriculture. 
We  find  cellars,  and  barns  or  granaries.  The 
dwellings  are  single  or  in  groups,  sometimes,  as 
at  Grosgartach,  forming  quite  a  village  or  town. 
They  are  situated  by  preference  on  the  loess 
terraces  of  the  streams  and  rivers,  near  enough 
to  the  water  for  boat  communication.  The  pot- 
tery varies  in  fineness  and  beauty  according  to 
the  size  of  the  dwelling  and  therefore  the  wealth 
of  its  owner.  Social  differences,  rank,  and 
fashion  are  appearing  in  truly  modern  form. 

2.  Corded  Pottery.  The  most  characteristic 
and,  perhaps,  culminating  form  is  the  Amphora 


158  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

or  flasklike  vase  with  wide  neck,  which  starts 
abruptly  from  a  globose  portion  with  flat  base. 
Its  prototype  may  have  been  the  leathern  flask 
or  bottle.  Here  the  ornament  consists  of  paral- 
lel lines  arranged  in  a  band  or  in  bands  around 
the  neck,  but  often  extending  somewhat  on  to 
the  upper  surface  of  the  bulb.  The  lines  look 
as  if  made  by  winding  a  cord  around  the  neck 
while  the  clay  was  still  soft;  hence  the  name  of 
the  group.  It  seems  to  have  been  originally  a 
purely  northern  product,  which  toward  the  close 
of  the  Neolithic  period  was  carried  southward 
by  a  distinct  movement  of  population.  It  is 
found  almost  entirely  in  graves,  often  accom- 
panied by  calyciform  cups.  Schliz  says  that  it 
is  never  found  in  remains  of  dwellings.  The 
household  pottery  was  apparently  crude  and 
coarse,  with  no  distinctive  type  of  ornament. 
The  carriers  of  the  culture  were  apparently 
herdsmen  rather  than  tillers  of  the  soil,  and 
always  more  or  less  hunters.  Their  finest  im- 
plements were  their  weapons. 

3.  Calyciform  Pottery,  Zonen-  or  Glocken-be- 
cher,  has  been  by  some  united  with  Corded  Pot- 
tery. It  has  the  shape  of  a  goblet  or  inverted 
bell  with  flaring  rim  and  flat  base. 

The  ornament  is  in  circular  zones  separated 
by  bands  of  well-polished  surface  covering  the 
whole    outside.     It    is    found    in    Asia    Minor, 


$■•  a  pwpffl 


'    S  Hi 


POTTERY 

/4.    Banded  pottery. 

B.  1.  Origin  of  banded  ornament  from  eords  suspending  a  more  or  less  hemispherical 

vessel  derived  from  the  hollow  gourd. 
2.   Corded  ornament  derived  from  suspension  of  flask  (Amphora). 

C.  Cups  and  Kugelamphore   (globular  flask)  from  Groszgartach. 


NEOLITHIC   INDUSTRIES  159 

Egypt,  Italy,  and  in  western  Europe  along  the 
whole  zone  of  megalithic  monuments,  whence 
it  spread  northward  and  eastward  into  middle 
Europe. 

The  incrusted  pottery  characterized  by  in- 
cised lines  filled  with  a  white  material  may  have 
had  a  distinct  origin  and  development,  though 
its  technique  has  often  been  borrowed  and  ap- 
plied to  other  types.  The  pottery  of  the  oldest 
lake-dwellers  is  crude,  coarse,  with  little  or  no 
ornament.  Hence  it  is  difficult  to  connect  it 
with  any  other  type. 

Form  and  shape  of  pottery  are  often  quite  or 
very  persistent.  We  cannot  understand  why 
the  base  of  so  many  jars  was  left  rounded,  or  in 
some  old  lake-dwellings  pointed,  when  it  might 
easily  have  been  flattened,  apparently  to  good 
advantage.  But  even  the  form,  and  still  more 
the  ornament,  changes  according  to  time,  place, 
and  fashion;  hence  these  are  very  useful  in  trac- 
ing periods  and  cultures  and  their  relations. 
Where  different  types  meet  there  is  usually  more 
or  less  change  or  modification,  often  difficult  to 
interpret.  Our  knowledge  of  European  pot- 
tery is  still  small  and  unsatisfactory,  but  it  has 
already  been  of  much  use  in  tracing  migrations 
of  culture  and  relations  between  provinces  often 
widely  separated. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY 

""W"jrTE  must  imagine  Europe  in  upper 
^  V  Paleolithic  times  again  as  a  terminal 
region,  a  great  peninsula  toward 
which  the  human  emigrants  from  the  east  and 
from  the  south  came  to  mingle  and  to  super- 
pose their  cultures.  These  races  took  the  grand 
migration  routes  which  had  been  followed  by 
other  waves  of  animal  life  before  them;  they 
were  pressed  upon  from  behind  by  the  increasing 
populations  from  the  east;  they  were  attracted 
to  western  Europe  as  a  fresh  and  wonderful 
game  country,  where  food  in  the  forests,  in  the 
meadows,  and  in  the  streams  abounded  in  un- 
paralleled profusion.  .  .  .  Between  the  retreat- 
ing Alpine  and  Scandinavian  glaciers  Europe 
was  freely  open  toward  the  eastern  plains  of  the 
Danube,  extending  to  central  and  southern 
Asia;  on  the  north,  however,  along  the  Baltic, 
the  climate  was  still  too  inclement  for  a  wave 
of  human  migration,  and  there  is  no  trace  of 
man  along  these  northern  shores  until  the  close 
of  the  Upper  Paleolithic,  nor  of  any  residence 
of  man  in  the  Scandinavian  peninsula  until  the 

100 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        161 

great  wave  of  Neolithic  migration  established 
itself  in  that  region."  * 

We  must  now  attempt  to  determine  the  suc- 
cession of  these  great  changes  in  the  climate 
and  face  of  Europe,  and  then  see  if  we  can  fix 
any  dates  for  some  of  the  changes  and  for  the 
introduction  of  new  cultures. 

In  the  oscillations  of  the  ice-front  marking  the 
final  retreat  of  the  Alpine  glaciers  there  were 
three  epochs  of  advance.  Two  of  these,  the 
Biihl  and  Gschnitz  advances,  with  the  interval 
of  retreat  between  them,  were  occupied  by  the 
Magdalenian  or  last  epoch  of  Upper  Paleolithic 
time.  The  third  advance,  the  Daun  Epoch, 
or  perhaps  the  latter  part  of  the  Gschnitz  and 
the  first  part  of  the  Daun,  is  represented  by  the 
Azilian-Tardenoisian  Epoch,  a  period  of  transi- 
tion from  Paleolithic  to  Neolithic  time.  These 
changes  have  been  clearly  traced  by  Osborn.2 

We  are  most  closely  concerned  with  the 
changes  which  took  place  around  the  Baltic  in 
Denmark  and  Scandinavia  during  this  post- 
glacial retreat  of  the  ice.  Here  also  we  find  the 
same  disappearance  of  the  tundra  and  "barren- 
ground"  fauna  already  noticed  in  France,  and 
the  appearance  of  a  park-flora  of  forests  inter- 
spersed with  open  glades  or  meadows.     But  we 

•40:  279.  MO:  281. 


162  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

need  not  be  surprised  if  we  find  that  the  retreat 
of  the  great  Baltic  or  Scandinavian  ice-sheet 
does  not  keep  step  exactly  with  that  of  the 
Alpine.1 

1.  The  last  ice-sheet  had  covered  most  of 
Scandinavia  except  the  western  half  of  Denmark 
and,  perhaps,  the  most  southern  portion  of 
Sweden.  But  a  broad  mass  of  ice  covered  most 
of  Schleswig,  at  least  the  eastern  half  of  Hol- 
stein,  and  a  fairly  wide  zone  of  land  south  of 
and  more  or  less  parallel  to  the  south  shore  of 
the  Baltic.  To  the  eastward  and  northward  a 
great  sea  extended  to  the  Arctic  Ocean.  This 
earliest  stage  marked  the  farthest  advance  of 
the  ice  just  before  the  final  retreat. 

%.  Slowly  and  gradually  the  ice  retreated  un- 
til finally  it  occupied  only  the  mountains  of  the 
backbone  of  Scandinavia.  The  region  of  the 
Baltic  Sea  and  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia,  a  large  part 
of  Sweden  and  a  good  portion  of  Finland  were 
covered  by  a  great  sheet  of  water,  the  Yoldia 
Sea,  connected  by  a  broad  sound  at  the  present 
Skager  Rack  with  the  North  Sea  and  Atlantic, 
and  still  opening  widely  into  the  Arctic  Ocean 
northeastward.  The  submerged  regions  had 
been  greatly  depressed,  especially  in  the  north. 
The  clays  deposited  along  the  shores  of  the  sea. 
are  now  raised  often  to  a  height  of  one  hundred 

JD:  465;  49:  .540. 


SUCCESSIVE  STAGES  AND  FORMS  OF  BALTIC  SEA 

1.  Culmination  of  last  advance  of  ice. 

2.  Yoldia  Sea  during  retreat  of  ice. 

3.  Yoldia  Sea  at  greatest  size. 

4.  Scandinavia  during  Aneylus  Epoch. 

(The  white  represents  the  ice;   dark  gray  represents  the  land;   light  gray  the  Baltic  Sea.) 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        163 

metres  above  tide-level.  But  to  the  southward 
the  depression  was  only  slightly  marked. 

It  is  important  to  our  later  study  to  notice 
that  these  clays,  which  are  thick  and  fine- 
grained, are  composed  of  thin  layers  of  alter- 
nating dark  material  deposited  in  fall  or  winter, 
and  lighter,  more  sandy,  brought  down  by  the 
spring  freshets.  The  temperature  of  the  sea 
could  hardly  have  been  much  above  freezing- 
point,  as  is  shown  by  the  presence  of  arctic  forms 
of  mollusks,  like  Yoldia  arctica  and  Astarte  bo- 
realis.  The  land-plants  of  this  epoch,  the  so- 
called  Dryas  flora,  are  dwarf  cold  tundra  forms, 
now  occurring  In  Spitzbergen,  Lapland,  and 
Arctic  Russia  and  Siberia.  But  certain  plants, 
especially  in  Sweden,  lead  us  to  infer  that  while 
the  winters  were  long  and  severe,  the  short 
summers  were  warm  or  even  hot.  This  does 
not  surprise  us  in  northern  tundra  regions. 
Reindeer  still  lived  in  the  region.  This  Yoldia 
Epoch  is  our  second  great  postglacial  stage. 
Man  had  apparently  not  yet  reached  Denmark, 
though  some  reindeer  hunters  probably  roamed 
over  Germany. 

3.  Toward  the  end  of  the  Yoldia  Epoch  the 
land  rose  in  southwest  Sweden,  connecting  this 
country  with  Denmark  and  cutting  the  connec- 
tion of  the  remains  of  the  Yoldia  Sea  with  the 
North   Sea.     A   similar   emergence   in   Finland 


164  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

completed  the  change  of  this  sea  into  a  great 
landlocked  body  of  water  called  the  Ancylus 
Lake,  from  the  most  common  and  characteristic 
mollusk,  Ancylus  fluviatilis.  The  glaciers  had 
shrunken  to  a  narrow  band  covering  the  moun- 
tains between  Norway  and  Sweden.  The  cli- 
mate, while  moderating,  was  still  cold.  The 
Arctic  flora  retreated  northward  and  was  fol- 
lowed in  Denmark  by  woods  and  even  forests 
of  willows,  aspens,  and  poplars,  entering  from 
the  south  and  southeast.  These  were  followed 
by  pines,  especially  in  the  dryer  districts,  later 
by  alders,  coining  from  the  east  across  Fin- 
land, according  to  Hoops.1  The  Ancylus  Epoch 
forms  our  third  stage.  The  settlement  at 
Maglemose  probably  took  place  toward  its 
close. 

4.  The  elevation  and  emergence  of  land  so 
characteristic  of  the  Ancylus  Epoch  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  depression  of  this  region,  especially 
in  its  southern  portions.  That  part  of  the  An- 
cylus Lake  corresponding  to  the  Baltic  regained 
broader  and  deeper  connections  with  the  North 
Sea  than  it  has  at  present.  Hence  the  waters 
of  the  Baltic  contained  a  larger  percentage  of 
salt  than  now.  The  marine  life,  Littorina  lit- 
torea,  Tapes,  and  others,  testifies  to  a  rise  in 
temperature   since   the   Ancylus   Epoch.     Oaks 

'60. 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        165 

had  already  begun  to  crowd  out  the  pines,  and 
will  be  followed  after  a  time  by  the  beeches  lov- 
ing a  soil  rich  in  humus,  rather  than  the  sandy 
barrens  occupied  by  the  pines.  A  similar  evi- 
dence is  furnished  by  other  plants,  some  of 
which  reached  a  higher  latitude  than  now.  The 
summer  temperature  was  perhaps  2^°  Cent, 
higher  than  at  present,  an  "optimum  tempera- 
ture" for  the  plant  life  of  this  region.  This 
improvement  of  climate  is  most  marked  in 
northeastern  Europe  and  seems  far  less  notice- 
able even  in  Germany.  Our  fourth  stage  is 
marked  by  a  greatly  improved  climate  and  the 
spread  of  the  shell-heaps. 

5.  A  fifth  stage  ushers  in  the  full  Neolithic 
period.  Between  the  Littorina  stage  and  the 
genuine  Neolithic  culture  of  lake-dwellings  and 
megaliths  there  is  a  considerable  gap  in  our 
knowledge,  a  period  during  which  agriculture 
and  domestic  animals  were  brought  in  and 
utensils  and  pottery  and  general  conditions  were 
greatly  improved. 

We  may  now  venture  to  attempt  to  gain  an 
absolute  chronology  of  more  or  less  definite 
dates  for  the  appearance  of  the  cultures  which 
we  have  noticed.  We  must  clearly  recognize 
that  our  best  results  can  be  only  tentative  and 
provisional.  A  careful  study  and  comparison 
of  the  pottery  of  northern  Europe  will  some  day 


166 


THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 


furnish  data  for  a  reliable  system.  For  the  sake 
of  convenience  we  will  begin  by  attempting  to 
set  a  date  for  the  close,  rather  than  the  begin- 
ning, of  the  whole  Neolithic  period.  We  have 
seen  that  this  was  brought  about  by  the  intro- 
duction of  the  metal  bronze.  Copper  had  come 
into  use  somewhat  or  considerably  earlier,  but 
it  seems  hardly  worth  while  to  consider  it  as 
characterizing  a  distinct  period.  It  is  rather 
the  last  phase  of  the  Stone  Age,  when  wider 
communications  and  trade  were  making  the 
transition  to  the  use  of  metals  like  bronze  and 
iron. 

According  to  Montelius,1  who  is  our  best  au- 
thority on  chronology,  the  use  of  bronze  in  suffi- 
cient quantities  to  mark  the  beginning  of  a  new 
period  took  place  in  different  countries  at  the 
dates  given  in  the  second  column  of  the  fol- 
lowing table,  the  first  column  showing  the  date 
of  the  first  use  of  copper:2 


REGION 

■ 

YEAR  B.  C. 

COPPER 

BRONZE 

5000 

3000 
3000 
2500 
2500 

3000 

2500 
2000 
2000 
1900 

Troy,  Greece,  and  Sicily 

Middle  Europe  and  France 

North  Germany  and  Scandinavia 

215-218. 


B:  II,  242. 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        167 

These  dates  mark  the  beginning  of  the  more 
or  less  general  use  of  metals,  not  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  a  few  imported  articles.  Some  au- 
thorities would  place  the  beginning  of  the 
Bronze  period  a  few  centuries  earlier,  and  that 
of  the  introduction  of  copper  some  500  years 
earlier.1  Forrer  dates  the  beginning  of  both 
epochs  a  little  later  than  Montelius.  The  date 
2000  B.  C.  would  seem  to  mark  the  end  of  the 
Neolithic  period  in  middle  Europe  with  approxi- 
mate accuracy. 

In  attempting  to  determine  the  date  of  the 
beginning  of  the  Neolithic  period  we  may  begin 
with  a  remote  point  of  departure  for  comparison 
and  select  the  Buhl  stage  and  the  beginning  of 
the  Magdalenian  Epoch.  Nuesch  made  a  care- 
ful estimate  from  the  deposits  at  Schweizersbild 
near  Schaffhausen,  Switzerland.  His  method  of 
estimating  is  described  fully  by  Obermaier.2 
He  places  the  beginning  of  the  Neolithic  de- 
posits here  at  6000  B.  C,  and  considers  20,000 
years  as  a  fair  estimate  for  the  time  elapsed  since 
the  first  occupation  of  this  locality  by  Mag- 
dalenian hunters  at  some  time  during  the  Buhl 
Epoch.  Obermaier,  summing  up  the  evidence, 
concludes  that  the  beginning  of  the  Magda- 
lenian Epoch  could  not  have  been  later  than 

IE:  563.  >D:  I,  335. 


168  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

16,000-18,000  B.  C,  and  that  it  ended  not  far 
from  12,000  B.  C.  Osborn  says:  "Buhl  mo- 
raines in  Lake  Lucerne  are  estimated  as  having 
been  deposited  between  16,000  and  24,000  years 
B.  C."  He  also  appears  to  place  the  Magle- 
mose  culture  at  about  7000  B.  C.1 

We  may  now  turn  to  the  great  Scandinavian 
ice-sheet,  whose  retreat  may  have  begun  some- 
what later  and  proceeded  more  slowly  on  ac- 
count of  its  more  northerly  position.  Here  De 
Geer  has  made  a  report  based  on  a  very  careful 
study  of  the  annual  layers  of  deposition  formed 
during  the  glacial  retreat.  We  have  already 
seen  that  the  material  brought  down  by  the 
spring  freshets  differs  in  color  and  texture  from 
that  of  late  summer  and  autumn.  Hence  these 
annual  layers  are  almost  as  distinct  and  as 
easily  counted  as  the  rings  in  the  trunk  of  a 
tree.  This  method  promises  great  accuracy 
of  results,  and  the  thickness  and  character  of 
the  layers  and  their  included  organic  remains 
throw  much  light  on  the  climatic  and  other 
conditions  under  which  they  were  laid  down. 
But  even  here  the  length  of  certain  periods  of 
halt  in  the  glacial  retreat  can  be  only  very 
roughly  approximated.  The  number  of  annual 
layers  of  deposit  in  the  Swedish  Lake  Ragunda 

»40:  281. 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        169 

lately  drained  shows  the  number  of  years  since 
the  lake  was  uncovered  almost  at  the  end  of  the 
retreat  of  the  Scandinavian  ice. 

Says  Sollas:  "The  Ancylus  Lake  was  in  ex- 
istence at  a  time  when  the  ice  had  very  nearly, 
though  not  quite,  accomplished  its  full  retreat, 
i.  e.,  a  little  more  than  7,000  years  ago  (the  length 
of  post-glacial  time);  and  Baron  de  Geer,  al- 
though he  has  not  yet  been  able  to  bring  the 
beach  of  the  lake  into  connection  with  his  sys- 
tem of  measurements,  thinks,  as  he  has  kindly 
informed  me,  that  its  probable  date  may  be 
7,500  years  counting  from  the  present."1 

Menzel,  in  a  chart  embodying  the  results  of  his 
study  of  De  Geer's  work,  places  the  beginning 
of  the  retreat  of  the  ice  in  Germany  at  21,000 
B.  C,  the  maximum  of  the  Littorina  depression 
and  epoch  of  kitchen-middens  at  6000  B.  C, 
full  Neolithic  at  4500  B.  C,  beginning  of  Bronze 
period  1700  B.  C.2 

Keilhack,  basing  his  study  on  the  silting  and 
dune-formation  at  Swinepforte,  estimates  that 
the  time  elapsed  since  the  maximum  of  the  Lit- 
torina depression  down  to  the  present  has  been 
about  7,000  years,  making  the  date  of  the  de- 
pression about  5000  B.  C.  He  considers  his  esti- 
mate as  somewhat  more  probable  than  De  Geer's. 

!49:  565.  2  214. 


170  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

Anderson  has  called  attention  to  the  change 
of  position  of  the  earth's  axis  at  different  times. 
When  the  position  of  the  earth's  axis  was  such 
as  to  give  most  sunlight  in  Sweden,  the  midnight 
sun  was  above  the  horizon  at  Karesuanda,  the 
most  northern  astronomical  station,  62  days. 
During  the  time  of  most  unfavorable  position 
it  was  above  the  horizon  only  38  days,  a  differ- 
ence of  24  days.  This  change  should  influence 
climate  and  vegetation.  The  period  of  maxi- 
mum sunshine,  according  to  this  view,  was  9,000 
years  ago,  about  7000  B.  C,  somewhat  earlier 
than  the  maximum  of  the  Littorina  depression. 
It  would  tend  to  give  a  climatic  optimum  at 
nearly  the  same  time  as  estimated  by  Menzel. 

Steenstrup1  discovered  the  succession  of  for- 
est growths  in  the  peat-bogs  or  moors  of  Zealand, 
north  of  Copenhagen.  In  the  layers  of  some  of 
the  depressions  he  found  what  seemed  to  be  al- 
most a  complete  record  of  forest  life  from  the 
time  of  the  retreat  of  the  glaciers.  The  upper 
layers  of  peat  contained  remains  of  trees  still 
flourishing  in  the  surrounding  country:  alders, 
birches,  and  beeches.  Then  came  oaks,  and 
still  deeper  the  pines.  Beneath  these  were  as- 
pens, arctic  willows,  and  other  plants  of  the  far 
north.     Remains  of  the  reindeer  occur  in  their 

'C:  225. 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        171 

lowest  layer.  The  pines  hardly,  if  at  all, 
reached  Denmark  before  the  Ancylus  Epoch, 
preceding  periods  showing  only  the  Dry  as  flora. 

The  pines  had  a  hard  struggle  for  life  at  first. 
They  are  dwarfed  and  their  rings  of  annual 
growth  are  very  thin,  sometimes  as  many  as 
seventy  to  the  inch  of  thickness.  Still  some  of 
these  dwarfs  attain  the  very  respectable  age  of 
300  to  400  years.  Gradually  they  prospered, 
and  in  the  upper  layers  there  are  trunks  more 
than  a  metre  in  diameter.  All  these  facts  point 
to  early  and  long  occupation.  Steenstrup  reck- 
oned the  age  of  the  oldest  layers  of  these  ac- 
cumulations at  10,000  to  12,000  years,  dating 
their  beginnings  therefore  at  8000  to  10,000 
B.  C.  Pine  was  still  growing  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  shell-heaps,  or  the  capercailzie  or 
pine  partridge  would  probably  not  have  occurred. 

But  in  the  shell-heaps  we  find  only  oak  char- 
coal, not  pine.  This  was  at  least  beginning  to 
retreat  and  give  place  to  the  oak.  At  Magle- 
mose  we  find  pine  charcoal  but  oak  pollen 
grains  in  layers  apparently  of  the  same  age  as 
the  settlement.  Placing  the  shell-heaps  in  the 
early  part  of  the  pine  epoch  would  date  them 
as  early  as  7000  B.  C,  or  even  earlier,  accord- 
ing to  this  chronometer.  Hence  the  older 
writers,  who  placed  the  shell-heaps  in  the  pine 


172 


THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 


epoch,  dated  them  considerably  farther  back 
than  we  do  now. 

Steenstrup's  study,  a  work  of  genius,  is  en- 
tirely compatible  with  and  probably  implies  a 
considerably  later  date  than  we  used  to  accept. 

The  following  table  shows  the  dates  assigned 
by  different  students  to  Maglemose  and  the 
shell-heaps : 


Obermaier 

Forrer 

Sollas 

Osborn 

Menzel  (Chart) 
Keilhack 


b.  c. 
Maglemose,  10,000 

Maglemose,    7,500 
Maglemose,    7,000 


b.  c. 

Shell-heaps,  8000 
Shell-heaps,  8000-6000 


Shell-heaps,  6000 
Shell-heaps,  5000 


The  shell-heaps  and  Maglemose  hardly  seem 
to  differ  in  age  as  much  as  Obermaier  thinks; 
De  Geer's  study  was  very  careful  and  certainly 
demands  respectful  attention.  The  tendency 
toward  later  dates  for  these  cultures  seems  to 
be  strong  and  increasing.  If  we  place  Magle- 
mose at  7000  to  7500  B.  C,  and  the  shell-heaps 
6500  to  6000  we  have  probably  made  them  as 
ancient  as  the  facts  can  well  allow.  It  is  better 
to  hold  judgment  still  somewhat  in  suspense. 
Even  if  Obermaier  should  yet  prove  to  be  cor- 
rect in  his  apparently  extreme  dates,  it  is  still 
evident  that  the  Neolithic  period   began   late 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        173 

and  was  of  short  duration  compared  with  the 
millennia  in  which  Paleolithic  time  was  reckoned. 

Our  records  are  scanty  for  the  earlier  portions 
of  the  more  or  less  than  5,000  years  which  we 
have  allowed  for  the  Neolithic  period.1  We 
find  the  shell-heap  culture  spreading  from  Den- 
mark into  Sweden  and  Norway.  Following 
closely,  or  overlapping  it,  crossing  Norway  from 
the  region  of  Christiania,  we  find  the  Nostvet 
and  Arctic  cultures,  perhaps  nearly  related, 
perhaps  distinct,  but  leading  over  to  the  genuine 
Neolithic  Scandinavian  culture.  Here  we  find 
forms  intermediate  between  the  axe  and  "pick" 
of  the  shell-heap  and  the  axes  of  later  epochs. 

We  have  already  described  the  rude,  some- 
what triangular  axe  of  the  shell-heaps.  The 
axe  of  Paleolithic  time  had  had  nearly  the  shape 
of  an  almond.  We  will  compare  the  pointed  end 
to  the  back,  and  the  cutting  edge  to  the  edge  of 
our  axe  or  carpenter's  hatchet.  The  earliest 
polished  axes  of  Denmark  still  retained  nearly 
the  shape  of  a  somewhat  long  and  thin  almond.2 
Their  cross-section  might  be  compared  to  an 
ellipse  with  pointed  instead  of  rounded  ends. 
This  is  the  "  trpitznackiges  BeiV  of  Miiller  and 
Montelius.  It  occurs  all  over  Europe  and  still 
farther,  while  the  two  following  forms  have  a 

1  219-221.  2  222,  223. 


174  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

continually  more  restricted  distribution.  It  is 
not  found  in  the  village  settlements  or  stone 
graves,  and  evidently  characterizes  a  period  be- 
tween these  and  the  shell-heaps. 

The  second  form,  the  dunn  —  or  schmal- 
nackiges  Beil  —  may  be  compared  to  a  long  and 
flattened  almond  with  a  small  part  at  the  pointed 
end  removed  and  a  narrow  strip  cut  off  from 
each  side.  The  flatter  surfaces  nearly  meet  at 
the  end  opposite  the  cutting  edge,  leaving  this 
end  thin.  The  surfaces  have  become  much 
more  nearly  flat,  and  the  cross-section  a  rec- 
tangle with  somewhat  short  ends  and  slightly 
curved  sides.  These  belong  to  the  period  of  the 
earliest  stone  graves  or  still  earlier.  They  could 
be  easily  fastened  in  a  wooden  handle.  This 
form  is  very  common  in  Scandinavia. 

The  third  form,  the  breit  —  or  dick  —  nackiges 
Beil,  has  almost  exactly  the  shape  of  a  thick 
chisel-blade  with  broad  and  thick  back  opposite 
the  edge,  and  is  rectangular  in  cross-section.  It 
appears  in  the  later  megalithic  tombs  and  the 
underground  stone  vaults  or  cists. 

Late  in  the  Neolithic  period,  usually  after  the 
introduction  of  copper,  we  find  an  axe  —  or 
"hammer-axe"  —  shorter  and  much  thicker, 
somewhat  in  the  shape  of  a  very  light  stone- 
mason's hammer,  and  with  a  hole  for  the  handle. 


f--; 


s 


&     kM- 


Thin-backed  axe. 

Diinn-nackiges  Beil — 

Early  and  Mid-Neolithic. 


Hammer  axes — Late  Neolithic. 


Palaeolithic  hand-stones — "Coups-de-Poing." 


FORMS  OF  PREHISTORIC  AXE 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        175 

These  axes  sometimes  had  two  cutting  edges, 
sometimes  one  edged  and  the  other  blunt  for 
hammering.  Many  of  them  were  exceedingly 
beautiful  in  form,  design,  and  finish.  But  this 
method  of  fastening  the  head  to  the  handle 
greatly  weakened  the  brittle  stone.  Many  of 
them  were  probably  merely  articles  of  luxury 
or  adornment.  The  hole  was  made  by  twirling 
a  stick  or  bone,  with  plenty  of  sand,  water,  and 
patience. 

We  have  thus  in  the  axes  and  the  megaliths 
a  well-established  sequence  of  forms,  but  no 
means  of  fixing  dates  except  at  the  beginning 
and  end  of  the  whole  period.  Apparently  there 
was  a  long  time  between  the  Scandinavian  shell- 
heaps  and  the  fully  established  Neolithic  cul- 
ture, of  which  we  have  practically  no  records. 

Peculiar  types  of  axes  (except  the  mattock), 
and  the  megaliths  do  not  occur  in  the  province 
of  the  banded  pottery,  which  itself  will  probably 
some  day  give  us  the  clew  to  a  system  of  chro- 
nology. The  pottery  of  Thessaly,  Thrace,  and 
certain  parts  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  is  being 
gradually  synchronized  with  that  of  Mycenaean 
and  pre-Mycensean  Greece.  Important  discov- 
eries seem  reasonably  certain  in  a  not  distant 
future.  We  can  only  wait  for  them  with  what 
patience  we  can  assume. 


176  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

Our  real  and  definite  knowledge  of  the  age  of 
the  lake-dwellings  is  hardly  better.  Hoops 
tells  us  that  they  belong  to  the  Beech  period  of 
the  Swiss  flora.  But  this  period  may  be  much 
older  in  Switzerland  than  in  Scandinavia;  how 
much  older  we  do  not  know.  The  underground 
stone  burial-cysts  of  Switzerland  look  late.  The 
small  number  of  the  villages  containing  no  trace 
of  copper  and  the  high  grade  of  household  arts 
and  technique  in  even  the  oldest  of  them  sug- 
gest the  same  conclusion.  Here  again  it  seems 
dangerous  to  even  conjecture  a  date. 

Montelius,  whose  opinion  on  these  subjects  is 
certainly  of  great  value,  says:  "All  things  con- 
sidered, I  am  convinced  that  the  first  stone 
graves  were  erected  here  in  the  north  more  than 
3,000  years  before  Christ."  1  (It  may  be  safe, 
therefore,  to  date  them  provisionally  between 
3000  and  4000  B.  C.)  "The  epoch  of  the  dol- 
mens with  covered  entrance  (Gangraber)  begins 
about  the  middle  of  the  third  millennium  B.  C, 
and  the  epoch  of  the  stone  vaults  or  cysts  (Stei?i- 
histen)  corresponds  to  the  centuries  about  2000 
B.  C." 

JJ:  65. 


NEOLITHIC   CHRONOLOGY        177 


CHART  I.    POSTGLACIAL  STAGES 

RETREAT  OF  ICE  AND  CHANGES 


SCANDINAVIA 

WESTERN  AND 
MIDDLE  EUROPE 

PARALLELS  IN 

ASIA  AND 
ELSEWHERE1 

DATE 

1.  Aachen  Stage. 

24,000  (to 
40,000)  B.  C.2 

Ice-retreats  in 
northern 
Germany. 

Solutrean.  Dry 
and  Cold. 

Steppe  and  Tun- 
dra Fauna. 

Swedish-Fin- 
nish Mo- 
raines. 

2.  Buhl  Stage. 
Early    Magda- 
lenian.  Moist 
and  cold. 
Tundra. 

16,000  (to 
24,000)  B.  C.3 

Yoldia  Period. 
Dryas  Flora. 

Middle  Magd. 
Steppe 
Loess  formed. 

Susa  founded. 

Glaciers  in 

Mountains. 
Ancylus 

Lake. 
Dryas,    Birch, 

Pine  Magle- 

mose. 

3.  Gschnitz 

Stage.     Late 
Magdalenian. 

Anau  founded.5 
Neolithic  Settle- 
ments in  Crete. 

10,000  B.C.?4 

Littorina    De- 

4. Daun  Stage. 

6,000  B.  C? 

pression. 

Optimum   Cli- 
mate. 

Oak.     Shell- 
heaps. 

Azilian-Tard. 
Campignian. 

Sumerians  in 
Babylonia. 

(7,000)  B.  C? 

Full  Neolithic. 
Beech. 

Full  Neolithic. 

Predynastic 

Egyptians. 
Copper  Period. 

4,000 
(-6,000)  B.C.? 

Bronze  Period. 

Bronze  Period. 

XI-XIII    Egyp- 
tian  Dynasties. 

1,900- 
2,500  B.  C. 

1  See  D:  545. 
4  40:  281,  449. 


2  40:  281,  333,  361;  D:  476,  41.   340:  350,  361. 
5 110:  I,  50. 


178  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 


CHART  II.    CHANGES  OF  CLIMATE  IN  DENMARK1 

1.  Arctic   climate.     Temperature   about   8°   Cent.     Younger 

Yoldia    layers,    Older    Dryas    period.     Flora:    Dryas 
octopetala,  Salix  polaris. 

2.  Subarctic    climate.     Temp.    8°-12°    Cent.     Older    Dryas. 

Flora  as  in  1. 

3.  Climate  becomes  moderate,  continental.     First  maximum 

temp.  12°-15°  Cent.     Birches,  poplars,  junipers. 

4.  Climate  subarctic.     Temp.  8°-12°  Cent.     Birches. 

5.  Climate  arctic.     Temp.  8°  Cent.     Salix  polaris. 

6.  Climate  subarctic.     Temp.  8°-12°.     Younger  Dryas  period. 

7.  Temperature    moderates.     Dry    continental    climate,     a. 

Aspen  Epoch;    b.  Pine  period  with  oaks  beginning  to 
appear  =  Ancylus  period. 

8.  Moderate  insular  climate.     Temp.  15°-17°  Cent.     Climatic 

optimum.     Older  Tapes  layers,  Maximum  of  Littorina 
depression.     Shell-heaps. 

9.  Temp.    15°-17°   Cent.     Probably   slightly  cooler  than  8. 

Oak  Epoch.     Beech  begins  to  appear  but  is  still  rare. 

Younger  Tapes  (Dosinia)  layers. 
10.     Moderate  insular  climate  about  16.1°  Cent.     Beech  Epoch. 

Mya  layers. 
These  climatic  changes  seem  to  argue  for  a  comparatively 
recent  date  for  the  Littorina  depression  and  the  shell-heaps. 

'See  214.     Chart  219.,  cf.  210. 


CHAPTER  IX 

NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  AND  THEIR 
MIGRATIONS 

THE  study  of  history  without  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  geography  is  almost  as 
futile  as  the  hope  of  interpreting  the 
structure  of  the  ape  without  thinking  of  his  ar- 
boreal life.1  Contour  lines  are  of  vast,  often 
dominant,  importance  in  the  life  of  every  nation. 
John  Bull  has  been  moulded,  if  not  made,  by 
his  island.  Italy  could  never  be  safe  until  its 
boundary  followed  the  crest  of  the  Alps.  Great 
mountain  chains  mark  limits,  and  river  valleys 
are  thoroughfares.  Whoever  holds  Constanti- 
nople controls  the  trade  of  a  boundless  area.  If 
this  is  true  to-day,  it  must  have  been  far  more 
important  in  prehistoric  times,  when  man  had 
only  begun  to  gain  a  certain  degree  of  indepen- 
dence or  mastery  of  nature.  Culture  was  then 
very  largely  determined  by  position  and  routes 
of  communication.  The  Alps  and  Pyrenees 
formed  a  long,  impassable  barrier  between  north- 
ern and  southern  Europe,  broken  only  by  the 
Rhone  valley;  and  northern  Europe  was  split 
into  an  eastern  or  middle  and  a  western  province 

'240,  241. 
179 


180  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

by  the  Juras,  the  Vosges,  and  the  forested  Ar- 
dennes. Then,  as  now,  the  Pass  of  Belfort  was 
the  narrow  opening,  and  Belgium,  always  the 
battle-ground  of  nations,  the  great  thoroughfare 
between  middle  Europe  and  France.  From  the 
south,  and  to  a  certain  degree  from  the  west, 
middle  Europe  was  not  easy  of  access.  But  to 
the  eastward  there  are  few  or  no  natural  bound- 
aries as  it  goes  over  into  the  great  Russian  plain, 
of  which  North  Germany  is  practically  a  west- 
ward projection.  We  might  possibly  go  farther 
and  accept  literally  the  somewhat  exaggerated 
statement  that  all  Europe  is  only  a  peninsula 
of  Asia. 

Osborn  has  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
from  Paleolithic  to  Neolithic  time  Europe  gave 
rise  to  no  new  races.1  The  immigrants  entered 
their  new  home  with  all  their  physical  and  mental 
characters  already  fixed  or  determined.  The 
routes  of  migration  of  the  successive  waves  of 
lower  Paleolithic  immigrants  are  still  unknown. 
Remains  of  Chellean  and  Acheulean  cultures  are 
rich  and  widely  distributed  everywhere  around 
the  Mediterranean,  especially  in  northern  Africa, 
at  this  time  well  watered.  The  entrance  of 
Neanderthal  man  into  Europe  may  well  have 
been  from  this  direction. 

»242. 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  181 

The  Cro-Magnon  race  very  probably  came 
along  the  northern  or  southern  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,  and  then  pushed  northward  into 
France;  though  the  evidence  is  far  from  com- 
pelling. The  race  is  evidently  Asiatic  in  its 
physical  characters,  reminding  us  of  tribes  still 
living  along  the  Himalayas,  most  strikingly  of 
the  Sikhs.  If  they  entered  from  the  south, 
northern  Africa  was  a  station  on  their  march, 
not  their  original  home.  The  Solutrean  culture 
may  have  been  brought  by  the  Brlinn  people, 
who  probably  came  through  Hungary  and  up 
the  Danube,  but  its  origin  and  route  of  migra- 
tion is  still  very  obscure.  Breuil's  arguments 
for  the  migration  of  Magdalenian  culture  from 
Poland  across  Europe  are  very  strong,  and  his 
view  seems  to  accord  well  with  the  facts,  though 
Osborn  seems  to  lean  toward  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent interpretation.1  The  broad-headed  people 
of  Furfooz  and  Grenelle  apparently  came  by  the 
central  European  route.  The  only  race  show- 
ing any  Negroid  characters  is  that  of  Grimaldi, 
apparently  accompanying  the  Cro-Magnons, 
few  in  number  and  having  little  or  no  influence 
on  the  population  of  Europe.  Evidently  the 
Mediterranean  region  was  far  more  precocious 
than  northern  Europe,  and  the  genuine  Mediter- 

1243. 


182  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

ranean  race  may  have  arrived  here  bringing  the 
Neolithic  culture  almost  or  quite  as  early  as  the 
beginning  of  the  Upper  Paleolithic  Epoch  in 
France. 

Sergi  is  of  the  opinion,  though  he  does  not 
press  it,  that  the  Mediterranean  race  originated 
in  Africa,  perhaps  in  the  region  of  the  great  lakes, 
and  that  its  most  primitive  representatives  of 
to-day  are  the  Hamitic  peoples  along  the 
southern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean.1  His 
definition  of  the  race  is  based  less  upon  mere 
breadth  and  length  of  skull  than  upon  contours 
and  form  and  development  of  regions.  It  was 
a  work  of  observation,  insight,  and  genius,  and 
was  a  landmark  in  the  progress  of  the  science  of 
anthropology. 

The  area  of  distribution  of  the  race  takes  the 
form  of  a  Y,  the  arms  following  the  north  and 
south  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  while  the 
stem  or  lower  portion  extends  through  Asia 
Minor.  It  includes  the  Hamitic  peoples,  also 
the  Pelasgi  and  the  Hittites,  but  leaves  out  the 
Semites. 

Huxley  had  described  the  distribution  cf  his 
Melanochrooi,  or  dark  Europeans,  very  similarly, 
except  that  in  his  group  the  stem  of  the  Y  lay 
farther  south  and  extended  into  Arabia.     In  lo- 

'244:  39-43. 


NEOLITHIC   PEOPLES  183 

eating  the  origin  of  the  Mediterranean  race  in 
Africa,  Sergi  was  doubtless  influenced  by  the 
opinion  of  Darwin  and  others  that  man's  birth- 
place was  in  Africa.  Nearly  all  paleontologists 
to-day  favor  the  Asiatic  origin;  and  the  stem  of 
the  Y  stretching  eastward  toward  Asia  Minor 
or  Arabia  points  to  a  possible  or  probable  primi- 
tive route  of  migration.  The  Asiatic  cradle  is 
really  in  better  accord  with  Sergi's  theory,  and 
meets  some  objections  or  difficulties  better,  than 
the  African. 

We  vaguely  located  this  Asiatic  cradle  some- 
where westward  or  northwestward  of  the  great 
plateau  of  Thibet.  We  may  call  it  the  Iranian 
plateau,  using  the  term  in  the  broadest  possible 
sense,  including  Afghanistan  and  perhaps  west- 
ern Turkestan :  a  great  area  extending  more  than 
1000  miles  from  northwest  to  southeast,  where 
it  sinks  into  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates.  We 
found  a  branch  of  the  great  Negroid  race  start- 
ing very  early  from  this  region  and  migrating 
westward  past  Arabia  into  Africa.  This  was 
an  easy  line  of  least  resistance  through  regions 
where  the  moist,  cooler  climate  of  the  glacial 
period  brought  only  blessing  instead  of  calamity 
and  curse.  The  Hamitic  and  Semitic  peoples 
naturally  followed  the  same  route,  travelling  as 
one  people  or  nearly  together,  if  the  relations 


184  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

between  the  languages  are  as  fundamental  and 
close  as  some  good  authorities  think.  The  Sem- 
ites settled  in  Arabia,  while  the  Hamites  went 
on  westward  and  found  a  home  along  the  south- 
ern shore  of  the  Mediterranean.  We  do  not 
know  when  this  migration  took  place. 

This  route  was  easy  and  wide,  and  led  into 
a  broad,  favored  continent.  It  would  not  be 
surprising  if  for  a  very  long  time  most  of  the 
travel  went  this  way.  We  may  venture  to 
guess  that  Neanderthal  man  may  have  followed 
it  long  before  the  beginning  of  the  Hamitic- 
Semitic  migrations,  but  this  is  only  a  guess. 
While  rich,  well-watered,  and  probably  park- 
like in  its  flora  during  the  moist  climate  of  the 
glacial  epochs,  it  was  sure  to  degenerate  into 
desert  as  the  climate  became  warmer  and  dryer; 
as  the  Sahara  Desert  is  dotted  with  the  remains 
of  Paleolithic  settlements  where  the  explorer 
to-day  is  in  danger  of  perishing  from  thirst. 
Any  traveller  by  this  southern  route  must  pass 
through  Italy  or  Spain  before  reaching  northern 
Europe. 

A  second  great  western  route  must  have  begun 
very  early  to  compete  with  the  African.  This 
led  along  the  curve  of  the  mountain  ranges  of 
Persia  and  Armenia,  with  Breasted's  fertile  cres- 
cent at  their  base,  up  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates 


mmimwM 


NEOLITHIC   PEOPLES  185 

and  elsewhere  into  Asia  Minor.  This  route 
continued  in  use  as  a  great  thoroughfare  for 
migrating  peoples  and  invading  armies  through 
historic  times.  Xenophon  and  his  10,000  ex- 
plored it.  It  is  surrounded  on  three  sides  by 
water,  although  mountain  chains  cut  off  the 
influence  of  the  sea  to  some  extent.  It  is  a 
plateau  of  glade  and  forest,  though  the  forests 
have  now  largely  disappeared.  It  has  the 
features  of  a  semitropical  climate;  here  the  flora 
of  northern  and  southern  provinces  meet  and 
overlap.  One  great  characteristic  of  the  region 
is  the  abundance  and  variety  of  its  fruit-trees. 
It  was  apparently  the  original  home  of  apricot, 
peach,  fig,  and  orange,  as  well  as  of  other  fruits 
introduced  into  Italy  from  this  region  by  the 
Romans.  The  vine  is  luxurious.  Somewhere 
along  the  line  of  this  great  thoroughfare  the  wild 
olive  was  domesticated,  improved,  and  trans- 
formed. Oaks,  walnuts,  chestnuts,  and  many 
smaller  growths  furnish  a  variety  of  nuts.  The 
open  glades  tempted  to  agriculture  and  furnished 
no  small  contributions  of  grain  to  Rome. 
Though  suffering  from  dessication,  it  may  yet 
again  become  the  garden  of  the  world. 

When  once  a  wave  of  westward  migration  had 
entered  Asia  Minor  it  was  walled  in  on  the 
north  and  south  by  mountain  and  sea.     There 


186  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

were  no  by-roads.  Crowded  and  pressed  from 
behind,  it  could  not  stop  until  they  reached  the 
shores  of  the  iEgean  Sea. 

Here  there  were  two  possible  outlets.  One 
was  by  sea,  using  as  stations  the  islands  with 
which  the  sea  is  dotted  and  leading  to  Crete 
and  to  Greece.  Crete,  according  to  Evans,  was 
settled  some  14,000  years  ago,  and  is  on  the 
whole  less  easily  reached  by  short  voyages  than 
Attica.  A  second  outlet  led  across  the  Helles- 
pont and  around  the  iEgean  Sea  into  Greece, 
or  still  farther  northward  and  westward  around 
the  Adriatic  and  down  into  Italy.  We  might 
add  still  a  third  fork  of  this  great  highway  run- 
ning northward  to  the  Danube.  When  we  re- 
member how  Neolithic  settlements  in  northern 
Europe  clustered  around  the  lakes  and  dotted 
the  river  valleys,  the  primitive  minor  routes  of 
communication,  how  early  islands  like  Crete  in 
the  south  and  Gothland  in  the  Baltic  were  set- 
tled, we  can  imagine  the  importance  of  a  city 
—  or  even  a  village  —  like  Troy  even  in  prehis- 
toric times.  Here  a  sea  route  running  east  and 
west  crossed  a  great  land  route  running  north 
and  south.  Here  was  a  point  of  exchange, 
trade,  and  transshipment  —  if  we  may  use  the 
word.  We  do  not  wonder  that  before  the  close 
of  the  Neolithic  period,  and  perhaps  far  earlier, 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  187 

patterns  and  influences  were  radiating  through 
the  Balkan  region,  far  up  the  Danube,  and  we 
know  not  how  far  into  Russia. 

It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
Greece,  and  Italy  to  a  less  extent,  were  in  climate 
and  many  other  features  bits  of  Asia  Minor, 
almost  shut  off  from  northern  Europe  by  the 
great  Alpine  barrier.  The  two  regions  were  en- 
tered by  different  routes,  each  of  which  had  left 
its  mark  on  its  travellers.  Immigrants  seeped 
into  Italy  and  Greece  through  broken  and  rough 
mountain  regions.  Great  invasions  were  diffi- 
cult or  impossible.  They  were  sunny,  smiling 
lands  compared  with  the  grim  and  dreary  north. 
Men  living  in  this  milder  climate  did  not  need 
to  be  gross  eaters.  They  lived  from  the  fruits 
of  their  orchards  to  a  far  larger  extent.  Nuts 
were  in  early  times  almost  a  surrogate  for  grain. 
The  olive  furnished  a  delicious  oil,  and  the 
grapes  wine.  The  butter  and  cheese  of  northern 
Europe  were  neither  needed  nor  desired.1  Most 
of  these  habits,  tastes,  and  desires  had  become 
fixed  during  the  march  through  Asia  Minor. 

The  peoples  which  gradually  went  westward 
from  the  Iranian  plateau  through  Asia  Minor, 
across  or  around  the  iEgean  Sea  into  Greece  and 
Italy  and  Spain,  generally  found  a  very  similar 

*245. 


188  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

environment  from  beginning  to  end  of  their 
long  journey.  There  was  little  in  food,  climate, 
or  conditions  to  compel  or  stimulate  change. 
Everything  tended  to  more  firmly  fix  in  their 
structure  the  already  long-inherited  characters 
of  their  Iranian  ancestors.  These  character- 
istics thus  fixed  have  become  stable  and  per- 
sistent, and  have  remained  so  in  modern  times 
in  spite  of  repeated  invasions  and  infusions  of 
northern  blood.  We  are  perhaps  justified  in 
speaking  of  a  Mediterranean  race. 

It  seems  strange  that  Sergi  should  find  traces 
of  his  Mediterranean  race  in  Russia.  Did  these 
find  their  way  so  far  northward  directly  from  the 
Mediterranean  area  or  are  they  merely  sporadic 
groups  more  resistant  to  modifying  influences; 
or  are  they  perhaps  groups  which  have  separated 
from  the  westward  migration  at  the  Hellespont 
and  turned  northward  ?  The  Nordic  peoples  of 
Europe  are  perhaps  after  all  not  so  far  from 
their  Mediterranean  cousins.  The  Mediter- 
ranean race  still  holds  its  own  around  the  Medi- 
terranean. In  France  its  blood  is  much  mixed 
and  greatly  diluted  with  later  infusions.  In 
England  it  has  generally  been  almost  completely 
swamped  by  Aryan  invasions. 

Neither  of  the  two  routes  already  sketched 
leads  directly  into  middle  or  northern  Europe. 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  189 

The  trend  in  both  is  toward  the  Mediterranean. 
We  must  now  consider  the  third  and  last  route, 
which  is  of  chief  interest  to  us.  We  have  al- 
ready seen  that  the  Black  Sea  prevented  all  mi- 
grations northward  from  Asia  Minor  except  at 
the  Hellespont.  Eastward  from  the  Black  Sea 
lies  the  Caspian,  probably  much  larger  in  glacial 
times.  The  two  seas  are  separated  by  the  for- 
bidding, almost  unbroken,  mountain  barrier  of 
the  Caucasus;  but  a  narrow  passage  at  each 
end  is  left.  East  of  the  Caspian  Sea  must  lie 
the  point  where  a  more  northerly  westward 
route  diverges  from  the  road  through  Asia 
Minor.  Our  third  route  starts,  therefore,  from 
the  northern  edge  of  the  Iranian  plateau,  per- 
haps mostly  from  Turkestan,  and  runs  west- 
ward north  of  the  great  barrier  of  seas  and 
mountains  just  described.  It  follows  the  great 
steppe  or  prairie  which  stretches  through  south- 
ern Siberia  and  Russia  into  Hungary.  Its  west- 
ern portion  lies  along  the  valley  of  the  lower 
Danube,  the  great  east  and  west  artery  of  com- 
munication and  migration  through  Europe.  It 
lies  farther  north  than  any  other  great  route, 
and  leads  over  steppe  instead  of  through  forest. 
As  the  Arabia-Africa  route  was  the  first  to  be 
traversed,  this  may  well  have  been  the  last. 
Furthermore,   the   route   through   Asia   Minor, 


190  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

ending  in  a  sort  of  cal  de  sac,  may  easily  have 
become  well  inhabited  and  hence  less  open  be- 
fore the  Neolithic  period  had  begun  in  northern 
Europe. 

It  was  by  no  means  the  most  attractive  route. 
It  offered  far  less  to  people  in  the  collecting  stage 
than  the  well-watered  parklands  of  Asia  Minor. 
The  steppe  offers  to  the  hunter  few  means  of 
concealment  or  approach  to  the  game.  The 
animals  are  swift  and  wary.  In  any  migration 
of  peoples  toward  the  frontier,  the  hunters  lead 
the  advance  and  spread  out  like  an  army  of 
scouts.  Every  river  which  crossed  the  steppe 
would  offer  to  them  a  tempting  by-road  leading 
off  into  the  forests  of  Siberia  or  Russia.  How 
deeply  they  would  penetrate  into  the  primeval 
forest  or  away  from  the  river  valleys  is  still  a 
question.  Very  likely  they  would  find  their  best 
hunting-grounds  not  very  far  from  the  northern 
edge  of  the  steppe,  where  the  forest  is  less  dense. 
This  question  we  cannot  yet  answer.  But  most 
of  European  Russia  is  well  watered,  and  here 
these  hunters  would  find  themselves  at  home. 
The  main  route  of  the  steppe  would  be  left  for  a 
very  different  population.  The  piedmont  zone 
of  grasslands  in  Turkestan  was  an  ideal  land  for 
primitive  agriculturists  practising  a  hoe-culture, 
as  at  Anau.     The  northern  edge  of  this  steppe 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  191 

zone,  where  it  joined  the  forest,  may  have  been 
equally  favorable. 

But  the  piedmont  zone  and  the  river  banks 
of  the  steppe  must  have  been  occupied  by  agri- 
culturists before  10,000  B.  C,  probably  much 
earlier.  Pumpelly's  explorations  seem  to  war- 
rant this  view.  Alongside  of  agriculture,  but  at 
a  somewhat  later  date,  sheep -herding  and  cattle- 
raising  were  practised.  But  the  nomad  of  these 
days  was  a  less  dangerous  neighbor  than  at  later 
times  because  the  horse  had  not  yet  been  do- 
mesticated. During  these  post-glacial  times  he 
would  be  less  dangerous  here  than  farther  south 
around  Arabia,  when  the  dryness  which  finally 
produced  the  Arabian  desert  was  making  itself 
felt,  burning  up  the  pastures  and  leaving  only 
the  choice  between  starvation  and  migration 
in  mass.  Again  comparing  this  migration  with 
the  pioneer  movements  of  peoples  in  historic 
times,  we  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  the 
sheep -herders  and  cattle  men  —  and  they  were 
probably  both  at  the  same  time  —  advanced 
faster  than  the  agriculturists,  who  were  more 
bound  to  the  soil.  Between  herdsmen  and 
farmers  there  were  almost  certainly  many  in- 
termediate grades.  We  may  be  fairly  confident, 
therefore,  that  the  movement  or  tide  along  this 
route  did  not  take  the  form  of  a  procession 


192  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

marching  in  lock-step,  but  of  a  series  of  waves, 
generally  with  hunters  in  front  and  along  the 
forest  flank,  herdsmen  in  the  middle,  and  farm- 
ers bringing  up  the  rear  and  making  permanent 
settlements  at  favored  spots. 

Hunters  had  been  spreading  northward  at 
least  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  Upper  Paleo- 
lithic times.  Farming  on  the  lowest  grades  of 
agriculture  is  essentially  Neolithic.  A  town 
or  village  had  risen  at  Susa  20,000  years  ago. 
Neolithic  civilization  probably  reached  Crete 
nearly  or  quite  15,000  years  ago.  Small  Su- 
merian  cities  were  being  founded  in  southern 
Babylonia  at  or  before  5000  B.  C.  Population 
was  increasing  in  density  in  the  Iranian  plateau, 
as  almost  every  mountain  region  with  its  healthy 
atmosphere  and  low  death-rate  quickly  becomes 
overpopulated.  Our  pioneer  column  was  con- 
tinually pressed  forward  by  new  recruits  from 
the  rear  as  well  as  by  its  natural  increase.  We 
have  practically  no  records  of  the  march.  But 
our  sketch  is  no  mere  invention  of  fancy.  It 
applies  to  every  great  migration  of  peoples  ex- 
tending over  centuries  or  millennia.  The  last 
illustration  was  the  great  westward  movement 
in  America  beginning  a  century  or  two  ago,  and 
still  far  from  completed. 

The  Hungarian  plain  is  the  last  extension  of 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  193 

the  great  south  Russian  steppe  far  into  Europe. 
West  of  this  anything  like  nomadic  life  was 
practically  impossible.  Here  our  pioneers  scat- 
tered and  followed  the  river  valleys,  settling 
more  or  less  permanently  the  loess  deposits  as 
farmers,  but  on  less  favorable  soils  devoting 
themselves  more  largely  to  cattle-raising.  The 
latter  form  of  life  seems  to  have  been  more 
common  on  the  great  North  German  plain, 
though  accompanied  by  much  hunting,  a  genuine 
pioneer  life. 

We  may  now  turn  to  Europe  and  consider 
the  distribution  of  its  races  and  peoples. 

Of  the  route  of  migration  of  the  Neanderthal 
race  we  have  no  sure  knowledge.  The  wide  and 
rich  distribution  of  ancient  Paleolithic  imple- 
ments in  Egypt  and  northern  Africa  tempts  us 
to  guess  that  it  represents  a  very  early  migra- 
tion along  the  Arabian  route  after  the  negroids 
and  before  the  Hamites  and  Semites.  We  have 
glanced  at  the  origin  of  the  Cro-Magnon  peo- 
ple, and  have  discovered  our  uncertainty.  The 
Tardenoisian  culture,  with  its  pygmy  flints,  is 
exceedingly  wide-spread,1  and  seems  to  have 
started  in  Europe  in  the  Mediterranean  region, 
arriving  from  still  farther  east.    We  are  tempted 

1 40  :  465. 


194  THE   NEW  STONE   AGE 

to  guess  that  the  great  bulk  of  westward  migra- 
tions in  Paleolithic  times  followed  the  southern, 
Arabian,  route,  but  there  were  probably  excep- 
tions. 

Coming  down  to  Neolithic  times  we  find  the 
Hamitic  peoples  in  Africa,  apparently  represent- 
ing the  first  wave  in  the  migration  of  the  Medi- 
terranean race.  It  may  well  have  arrived  at 
its  present  home  long  before  the  beginning  of 
the  Neolithic  period.  It  had  followed  the  south- 
ern route.  Peoples  physically  and  racially 
closely  akin  to  the  Hamites  followed,  probably 
in  successive  waves.  The  Tardenoisian  peo- 
ple, if  their  culture  was  carried  by  a  distinct 
people,  may  represent  an  early  wave.  The  bulk 
of  the  population  of  Greece,  Italy,  and  Spain 
followed,  but  migration  seems  to  shift  gradually 
from  the  Arabian  route  to  that  through  Asia 
Minor,  as  the  zone  of  most  favorable  climatic 
conditions  moved  slowly  northward.  Before 
the  close  of  the  Neolithic  period  the  relations 
between  Greece,  Crete,  and  western  Asia  Minor 
have  become  so  marked  and  close  that  they  al- 
most represent  one  culture  and  people. 

The  Mediterranean  race,  thus  established  in 
Europe,  spread  northward.  It  could  not  cross 
the  Alpine  barrier.  It  followed  the  Rhone 
valley  and  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  furnished  the 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  195 

basic  population  in  France  and  Great  Britain, 
though  here  frequently  crowded  back  into  cor- 
ners or  submerged  by  later  invasions,  peaceful 
or  otherwise.  It  furnished  the  great  link  or 
means  of  communication  between  the  Mediter- 
ranean basin  and  the  far  north  of  Europe. 
Schliz  has  some  reason  for  calling  these  megalith 
people  largely  traders. 

In  a  cave  near  Furfooz,  Belgium,  there  were 
found  crania,  probably  of  Azilian-Tardenoisian 
time,  noticeably  distinct  from  those  of  the  long- 
headed or  dolichocephalic  Paleolithic  peoples 
in  being  short  —  and  broad-headed,  brachy- 
cephalic.1  Brachycephalic  crania,  perhaps  early 
Neolithic,  were  also  found  at  Grenelle  near 
Paris.  We  remember  their  occurrence  in  the 
shell-heaps  at  Mugem,  Portugal.  Similar  crania 
were  found  of  about  the  same  age  at  Of  net, 
Bavaria,  on  a  tributary  of  the  Danube. 

Somewhat  later  we  find  broad-headed  people 
occupying  the  higher  lands  of  southeastern 
France,  the  Massif,  Juras  and  Vosges,  forming 
thus  a  north-and-south  zone  separating  France 
from  middle  Europe.  They  seem  later  to  have 
gradually  spread  westward,  somewhat  irregu- 
larly, and  to  have  mingled  with  the  Mediter- 
ranean peoples  of  France. 

1 268-272  a. 


196  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

The  relation  of  these  "  Protobrachy cephals " 
to  the  great  Alpine  race,  most  of  which  arrived 
later,  is  still  a  matter  of  discussion,  and  the 
whole  problem  of  the  brachycephalic  peoples 
bristles  with  interesting  questions.  They  seem 
to  have  originated  in  the  mountain  regions  of 
western  Asia,  possibly  in  or  near  the  Armenian 
highlands,  though  this  has  been  disputed.1  It 
looks  as  if  they  came  originally  from  a  region  bor- 
dering on  or  overhanging  the  steppe  route  and 
came  into  Europe  by  way  of  the  valley  of  the 
Danube.  There  were  certainly  several  if  not 
many  waves  of  brachycephalic  migrations  into 
Europe,  of  which  this  was  the  first.  Other  waves 
may  have  come  from  different  parts  of  a  great 
area,  and  hence  show  modifications  of  type. 
Everywhere  the  Neolithic  brachy cephals  seem  to 
inhabit  mountainous  or  rough  country,  perhaps 
because  of  preference,  perhaps  because  as  they 
gradually  made  their  way  they  found  these  re- 
gions unoccupied.  They  seem  to  be  an  unassum- 
ing, unpretentious,  peaceable,  exceedingly  per- 
sistent and  enduring  stock,  which  has  held  on  its 
way  with  remarkable  pertinacity.  Some  still 
maintain  that  brachycephaly  is  everywhere 
largely  an  adaptation  to  conditions  and  habits  of 
life.2     The  rough  country,  generally  heavily  for- 

1  272.  *  B:  I,  302. 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  197 

ested,  and  well  populated  with  this  quiet  but 
firm  and  solid  people,  greatly  hindered  free  com- 
munication between  France  and  central  Europe. 

No  human  remains  have  been  found  in  the 
Danish  kitchen-middens,  which  may  well  have 
been  heaped  up  by  broad-heads  from  Belgium 
but  apparently  mingled  with  eastern  immigrants 
who  brought  with  them  the  domesticated  dog 
not  found  at  Mugem.  They  left  their  axes  and 
picks  in  Sweden  and  across  into  Norway.  Be- 
hind them  came  people  bearing  the  Nostvet 
culture.1  Our  knowledge  of  Russian  prehistory 
is  still  very  scanty.  But  we  find  here  a  variety 
of  cultures,  such  as  we  should  expect  from  a  con- 
fusion of  hunting  tribes  far  from  their  original 
home  much  broken  up  and  remingled  during 
the  long  migration.  We  find  in  Poland  the  re- 
mains of  a  culture  akin  in  its  carvings  to  the 
Magdalenian  culture  of  western  Europe. 

It  would  hardly  have  crossed  Europe  from  the 
west.  Breuil 2  seems  to  consider  it  as  the  sta- 
tion from  whence  it  was  carried  to  France. 
The  question  is  exceedingly  interesting  and  im- 
portant, but  is  one  to  which  we  can  give  no  sure 
answer.  The  carved  bone  implements  are  cer- 
tainly to  be  found  in  Poland  and  to  the  north- 
ward. 

'220.  *220. 


198  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

Behind  these  bits  and  wrecks  of  tribes  and 
cultures,  for  they  were  hardly  more,  came  the 
first  great  recognizable  body  of  Nordic  peoples, 
probably  also  in  successive  waves  mingling  on 
this  northern  coast  toward  which  they  had  been 
drawn  by  the  climatic  optimum.  Kossina,1 
who  has  given  an  excellent  account  of  these 
early  northern  migrations,  speaks  of  them  as 
Urfinnen  and  Urgerma?ien,  primitive  Finns  and 
Germans.  Urskandinavier,  primitive  Scandina- 
vians, would  seem  to  be  a  more  appropriate 
name.  For  the  centre  of  the  least  mixed  blood 
of  this  group  is  to  be  found  in  the  Scandinavian 
peninsula. 

These  Scandinavian  representatives  of  the  so- 
called  Nordic  race  or  stock  are  characterized  by 
tall  stature,  blond  complexion,  light  hair,  blue 
eyes,  and  long  head  and  face.  Their  origin  is 
still  a  matter  of  much  discussion.  Kossina  and 
others  derive  them  from  Cro-Magnon  people, 
following  the  reindeer  in  its  migration  north- 
eastward from  France  at  or  toward  the  end  of 
the  Magdalenian  epoch.  Some  suggest  that  the 
Cro-Magnon  people  were  also  blonds.  If  this 
were  so  they  formed  a  marked  exception  to  the 
color  of  Paleolithic  stocks  coming  from  and 
through  southern  regions.     The  possibility  can- 

1220. 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  199 

not  be  denied.  But,  if  the  Cro-Magnons  were 
light-colored,  they  have  left  no  traces  of  this  in 
their  descendants  at  Perigeux  and  elsewhere. 
The  face  of  the  Cro-Magnon  was  short  and 
broad,  that  of  the  Scandinavian  long  and  nar- 
row. It  might  have  changed  but  has  not  done 
so  at  Perigeux.  The  Cro-Magnon  race  was  al- 
ready declining  in  physique  and  numbers  during 
the  Magdalenian.  Even  if  all  migrated,  could 
they  have  furnished  enough  descendants  to  give 
rise  to  the  Scandinavian  population?  It  seems 
to  me  far  more  probable  that  the  Scandinavians 
were  hunters  or  partially  herdsmen,  who  had 
wandered  by  the  steppe  route  through  the  for- 
ests or  along  their  edge,  and  had  lost  the  dark 
pigmentation  in  the  northern  climate.  This  has 
been  noticed,  perhaps  to  a  less  extent  among 
Asiatic  steppe-dwellers. 

The  study  of  prehistoric  anthropology  in 
Russia,  a  vast  territory,  is  still  in  its  infancy. 
We  have  touched  upon  only  one  or  two  of  the 
questions  concerning  this  so-called  Nordic  race, 
which  is  probably  hardly  more  than  a  name  for 
a  mixture  of  peoples.1  We  must  not  forget 
that  even  in  Scandinavia  we  find  traces  of  a 
very  early  immigration  of  short-headed  people.2 
We  still  know  little  concerning  life  in  North 

1  B:  I.  334-337,  307.  2246. 


200  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

Germany  during  the  Neolithic  period.  It  was 
probably  what  we  should  call  pioneer  life,  where 
hunting  and  cattle-raising  and  a  rude  tillage 
combined  to  furnish  support. 

We  must  now  turn  to  the  valley  of  the  Danube. 
Here  we  find  a  population  characterized  by  sim- 
ilar ground  form  of  skull,  although  according  to 
Schliz1  showing  two  fairly  distinct  varieties,  a 
longer  and  a  shorter  cranium.  Probably  this 
population  arrived  in  several  successive  waves. 
Its  culture  is  evidently  homogeneous.  They  are 
agriculturists  forming  fixed  and  permanent  set- 
tlements, practising  farming  of  a  high  grade. 
The  characteristic  implement  is  the  mattock. 
Daggers  and  lance-heads  are  rare,  or  fail.  They 
were  a  peaceful  folk  settling  by  preference, 
though  not  exclusively,  in  the  loess  districts,  as 
at  Grosgartach.  We  find,  as  we  had  every  reason 
to  expect,  that  northern  Germany  and  Scandina- 
via were  peopled  by  a  pioneer  folk  not  yet  com- 
pletely agricultural.  The  Danube  people  repre- 
sent the  farmers  of  the  steppe  whose  migration 
probably  went  on  more  slowly  and  gradually, 
and  who  always  remained  more  homogene- 
ous physically  and  culturally.  They  may,  or 
may  not,  have  reached  the  Danube  valley  as 
early  as  the  Germans  and  Scandinavians  arrived 

1  250:  202,  20G. 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  201 

at  the  Baltic,  for  they  had  far  less  distance  to 
march.  They  spread  out  westward  and  north- 
ward. Here  we  trace  them  by  their  pottery. 
Starting  from  Hungary  and  the  surrounding  re- 
gions we  find  them  in  Moravia,  Bohemia,  Silesia, 
across  south  and  middle  Germany  as  far  as  the 
Rhine.  We  have  already  noticed  that  the 
banded  pottery  covered  all  this  region,  while  the 
home  of  the  corded  pottery  was  North  Germany. 

But,  while  the  form  of  the  banded  pottery  is 
quite  constant,  the  ornament  varies  greatly. 
We  find  the  plain,  often  rude,  saw-tooth  pattern, 
the  meander  and  scroll,  the  spiral-painted  pot- 
tery— sometimes  in  the  southeast  plant  patterns, 
perhaps  introduced.  I  regret  that  I  cannot  find 
any  clear  or  definite  theory  as  to  the  exact  rela- 
tions of  any  of  this  pottery  to  that  of  Anau  or 
Susa.  The  greatest  variety,  as  well  as  the 
most  complex  patterns,  seem  to  occur  in  most 
southeasterly  regions,  which,  at  least  in  later 
Neolithic  times,  were  much  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  JEgesm  culture,  just  as  western 
Europe  borrowed  from  Italy  and  Spain. 

Here  there  was  evidently  a  great  and  very 
complex  mixture  of  cultures,  and  probably  of 
peoples  all  of  one  great  primitive  stock,  shown 
least  modified  in  the  Mediterranean  race,  here 
more  influenced,  changed,  and  varied  by  steppe 


202  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

climate  and  conditions,  and  more  or  less  ad- 
mixture. 

Along  the  Swiss  lakes  we  find  the  lake- 
dwellers.  The  few  human  remains  from  the 
earliest  lake-dwellings  are  all  brachy cephalic  — 
short-heads.  Then  in  the  period  when  copper 
was  beginning  to  come  in  we  find  long-heads 
arriving  in  greater  numbers,  but  the  short-heads 
regain  their  superiority  during  the  Bronze  period. 
The  weight  of  evidence  seems  to  favor  the  view 
that  these  settlers  did  not  come  from  the  zone 
of  "  proto-brachycephals "  inhabiting  eastern 
France,  but  represent  a  new  immigration  from 
the  east,  and,  according  to  Schliz,  founded  forti- 
fied settlements  on  the  heights  of  Baden,  Wur- 
temberg,  and  along  the  valley  of  the  Rhine  as 
far  as  Cologne.1  We  have  seen  that  the  pot- 
tery of  these  earliest  immigrants  was  crude  and 
almost  or  quite  without  definite  ornament. 

Northern  and  central  Europe  seem  to  have 
been  settled  mainly  or  almost  entirely  directly 
from  the  east,  along  western  Russia  and  the 
Danube  valley.  But,  especially  toward  the 
close  of  the  period,  people  from  the  megalithic 
zone  seem  to  have  penetrated  much  farther 
southward  into  Germany  than  their  monuments 
would  prove.     Schliz  thinks  that  he  has  recog- 

1  250:  205. 


NEOLITHIC   PEOPLES  203 

nized  their  skulls  as  well  as  calyciform  pottery- 
over  a  wide  region.  Their  presence  seems  fairly 
clear,  but  whether  they  were  comparatively 
very  few  in  number,  or  fairly  numerous,  is  still 
uncertain. 

There  seems  to  be  good  reason  for  believing 
that  in  late  Paleolithic  time  the  population  of 
middle  Europe  north  of  the  Alps  was  very  sparse 
and  the  Baltic  region  hardly  inhabited.  A  hunt- 
ing population  without  domestic  animals  except 
the  dog  pressed  northward  through  Russia  in 
waves  and  fragments,  and  along  the  Baltic 
mingled  with  a  strain  coming  from  the  west, 
probably  broad-heads  from  Belgium.  The  great 
Scandinavian  and  North  German  peoples  fol- 
lowed with  a  frontier  culture,  a  combination  of 
hunting,  fishing,  cattle-raising,  and  agriculture 
mingled  in  proportions  varying  according  to 
time  and  place.  Their  exact  route  of  migration 
from  the  region  of  the  steppes  must  yet  be 
traced.  But  the  weight  of  evidence  favors  an 
eastern  origin.  At  a  time  probably  not  so  very 
far  from  their  arrival  in  the  north,  agriculturists 
—  we  might  safely  speak  of  them  as  farmers  — 
were  coming  into  the  Danube  valley  and  spread- 
ing along  its  tributaries.  Apparently  somewhat 
or  considerably  later  the  lake-dwellers  appear 
along  the  northern  piedmont  zone  of  the  Alps  as 


204-  THE   NEW  STONE   AGE 

broad-heads,  marking  the  arrival  of  the  advance 
guard  of  the  great  Alpine  race  of  to-day.  But 
here  again  our  certainty  is  not  as  firm  as  we 
could  wish.  They  extend  northward  toward  and 
along  the  Rhine  valley.  The  close  of  the  period 
is  marked  by  the  southward  spread  of  peoples 
from  northern  Germany  crowding  back  the 
farmers  characterized  by  the  banded  pottery. 
This  movement  is  augmented  somewhat,  per- 
haps very  little,  by  recruits  from  the  megalithic 
zone  of  northwestern  Europe  and  Denmark. 
All  these  people  are  closing  in  on  central  or 
middle  western  Europe.  In  the  Rhine  valley 
along  the  middle  of  the  course  of  the  river  we 
find  a  region  of  mingling  or  overlapping  cultures 
which  have  not  yet  been  satisfactorily  disen- 
tangled. 

We  have  spoken  of  them  as  pioneers.  It  was 
a  time  and  place  of  pioneer,  frontier  life.  And 
frontier  men  and  life  have  their  peculiar  physi- 
cal, cultural,  mental,  and  temperamental  char- 
acteristics, almost  apart  from  time  and  place. 
The  people  have  something,  at  least,  in  common 
with  the  great  American  westward  migrations 
and  frontiersmen  of  a  far  later  date.  We  have 
the  successive  waves  of  hunters,  herdsmen,  and 
farmers  often  overlapping  or  mingling.  We  have 
a  grand  mixing  of  peoples  and  cultures,  if  not 


NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  205 

of  races.  Many  a  fine  art  or  technique  is  left 
behind.  Life  is  rude,  hard,  vigorous,  vital,  joy- 
ous. It  was  so  yesterday,  it  was  probably  so 
millennia  ago.  For  the  stratum  of  frontiersman 
and  barbarian  —  not  to  say  savage  —  lies  just 
below  the  surface  in  us  all,  and  a  scratch  ex- 
poses it.  This  was  a  period  of  vitality,  hope, 
and  promise. 


CHAPTER  X 
NEOLITHIC  RELIGION 

MAN'S  ancestors,  as  we  have  seen,  owed 
their  progress  to  their  training,  polic- 
ing, and  harassing  by  stronger  and 
better-arrned  competitors.  The  earliest  verte- 
brates developed  a  notochordal  rod  of  cartilage, 
and  then  a  backbone,  by  the  habit  of  swimming 
forced  upon  them  by  the  mollusks  and  Crustacea 
which  held  the  rich  feeding-grounds  of  the  ocean 
bottom  along  the  shores.  In  early  Paleozoic 
time  the  sharks  crowded  the  ganoids  in  succes- 
sive waves  toward  and  into  fresh  water,  until 
finally  some  crawled  out  on  the  shore  as  am- 
phibia. 

Land  life  and  air-breathing  gave  the  possi- 
bility of  warm  blood  and  high  development  of 
brain,  and  a  strong  tendency  toward  viviparous 
and  finally  intrauterine  development  of  the  em- 
bryo. Reptiles  harassed  mammals  into  the  at- 
tainment of  a  certain  amount  of  wariness  and 
intelligence.  The  comparatively  weak  Primates 
were  kept  in  the  trees  and  forced  to  develop 
hand  and  brain  by  the  fierce  and  well-armed 

206 


NEOLITHIC   RELIGION  207 

Carnivora.  Only  a  "saving  remnant"  has  pro- 
gressed, and  these  mostly  under  stern  and 
strenuous  pressure.  The  "aspiring"  ape  exists 
only  in  our  imagination. 

The  apes  had  become  accustomed  to  life  in 
the  trees,  and  found  it  safe  and  comfortable. 
A  change  of  climate  compelled  those  dwelling 
farthest  north  to  seek  their  living  on  the  ground. 
Most  of  them  fled  southward,  many  became 
extinct,  a  few  came  down  and  adapted  them- 
selves to  the  new  mode  of  life.  Nature  was  in 
no  sense  a  "fairy  god-mother"  to  them,  but  a 
stern,  harsh  disciplinarian  whose  method  of  edu- 
cation was  "not  a  word  and  a  blow  and  the  blow 
first,  but  the  blow  without  the  word,  leaving 
the  pupil  to  find  out  why  his  ears  had  been 
boxed" *;  and  nature's  cuffs  were  frequently  fatal. 
The  pupil  had  to  learn  by  others'  experience. 
Paleolithic  man  lived  in  France  poorly  armed 
and  ill-protected  against  a  threatening  climate 
steadily  changing  for  the  worse.  Food  may  have 
been  abundant,  but  enemies  hunting  for  him 
were  also  numerous.  He  was  compelled  to  be 
keen,  watchful,  prying,  wary;  to  discover  dis- 
tant danger,  and  to  notice  every  trace  of  its 
approach.  He  learned  the  habits  and  behavior 
of  animals,  and  the  ways  of  things  —  an  excel- 

^90:  85. 


208  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

lent  course  of  study.  He  had  to  rely  on  his 
wits,  and  they  were  none  too  keen  or  many. 

Some  things  he  could  understand:  he  learned 
to  avoid  or  to  ward  off  many  dangers.  Others 
seemed  altogether  beyond  his  understanding  or 
control.  Here  he  could  only  wonder;  but  the 
wise  old  Greeks  knew  that  wonder  was  the 
mother  of  wisdom.  He  wondered  at  storm, 
lightning,  hail,  and  flood;  at  disease  and  death, 
and  a  hundred  other  things.  He  sat  in  the 
mouth  of  his  cave  and  watched  that  strange 
creature  fire  devouring  the  wood  and  sending 
smoke  and  sparks  skyward.  He  thought  a  very 
little  in  a  dull,  stupid  way,  dozed  and  dreamed 
and  awaked  to  wonder  again.  Or  he  saw  fire 
raging  through  the  forest  and  fled  for  his  life. 
But  it  was  warming  and  fascinating,  and  some- 
how akin  to  himself.  Did  it  not  devour  wood 
and  lap  up  water  on  the  hearth? 

He  seems  to  have  come  to  feel  rather  than 
recognize  that  he  was  surrounded  by  invisible 
powers,  in  some  respects  like  himself  but  vastly 
more  powerful,  who  knew  what  he  was  doing, 
and  who  would  hurt  him  if  he  did  certain 
things  and  might  help  him  if  he  did  others. 
Certain  places  were  to  be  strictly  avoided,  cer- 
tain objects  must  not  be  touched,  certain  things 
must  never  be  done,  or  could  be  permitted  only 


NEOLITHIC   RELIGION  209 

at  certain  times.  They  were  taboo.  He  has 
started  on  a  long  journey  of  exploration,  experi- 
ment, and  discovery. 

How  had  he  come  to  believe  this?  Largely 
through  hard  experience  of  nature's  buffets, 
whenever  he  acted  contrary  to  this  hypothesis 
or  feeling.  His  religion  was  largely  one  of  fear 
fitted  for  a  savage  mind,  though  not  without  a 
mingling  of  hope. 

Of  course  in  us  cultured  folk  perfect  love, 
sentimentality,  softness  of  fibre,  heedlessness, 
forgetf ulness,  and  general  superficiality  of  life  — 
to  make  a  very  inadequate  list  —  have  combined 
to  cast  out  fear,  "for  fear  hath  torment";  and 
we  thank  God  loudly  that  we  are  so  much  wiser 
than  our  benighted  ancestors.  Even  our  New 
England  fathers  feared  God,  though  they  feared 
nothing  else,  but  we  fear  only  everything  else 
except  God  and  law.  But  the  unlucky  scien- 
tific wight  living  and  working  in  the  shadow  of 
adamantine  law  remains  in  hopeless  bondage  to 
fear. 

"Nach  ewigen  ehernen,  grossen  Gesetzen 
Mussen  wir  alle  unseres  Daseins  Kreise  vollenden."  l 

These  great  powers  might  not  necessarily  be 
hopelessly  hostile.  They  might  be  appeased  or 
won  over,  possibly  controlled.     What  could  he 


210  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

do  to  please  them?  For  something  must  be 
done.  Here  ritual  arises.1  Possibly  he  offers  to 
one  or  more  of  them  a  share  in  the  feast  which 
he  so  much  enjoys  after  a  successful  hunt.  In 
time  this  may  become  a  sacrifice,  sent  up  and 
out  on  the  wings  of  fire.2  Or  he  practises  a 
wind  or  rain  dance  as  the  outlet  and  expression 
of  his  intense  desire;  and  to  awaken,  encourage, 
and  help  the  powers  of  these  elements.  He 
holds  a  hunting-dance  to  rehearse  and  gain 
power  for  the  killing  of  the  bear.  Call  it  objecti- 
fication  of  his  heart's  desire,  or  magic  if  you 
prefer.  Magic  and  religion  grow  up  side  by 
side,  and  probably  from  the  same  root  in  these 
early  stages:  as  alchemy  and  chemistry,  astrol- 
ogy and  astronomy  will  spring  up  later. 

The  pictures  on  the  cave- walls  of  France  prob- 
ably had  a  magical  or  religious  purpose.  Here 
we  find  very  few  representations  of  human 
beings.  But  in  a  rock-painting  at  Cogul,  pos- 
sibly Neolithic  though  probably  older,  we  see  a 
group  of  women  apparently  engaged  in  some 
rite  of  magic  or  religion.  The  occurrence  of 
amulets  also  does  not  surprise  us. 

We  cannot  make  a  study  of  primitive  ritual 
magic  and  religion,  their  origin,  form,  and  con- 
tent.    But  even  our  hasty  glance  shows  us  that 

1  293.  -  294. 


NEOLITHIC   RELIGION  211 

man  had  been  wondering  and  thinking  about 
this  subject  during  millennia  before  our  Neo- 
lithic time,  had  been  forced  to  accept  many 
profound  convictions,  containing  germs  of  sub- 
lime truth  overlaid,  like  our  own,  with  many 
errors;  he  had  elaborated  a  system  of  ritual, 
and  had  travelled  far  along  the  road  of  religious 
experience  and  discoveries  long  before  this  com- 
paratively recent  epoch. 

The  conspicuous  features  of  the  religion  of 
this  ancient  period  of  primeval  stupidity,  or 
Urdummheit,  to  borrow  the  German  word,  were 
the  host  of  invisible  powers  or  daemons,  and  the 
law  of  taboo,  the  forbidden  thing.  Breach  of 
taboo  rendered  not  only  the  individual  law- 
breaker but  the  whole  tribe,  however  innocent, 
liable  to  punishment.  The  whole  community 
was  responsible  for  every  deed  of  any  and  every 
one  of  its  members,  and  suffered  or  prospered 
accordingly.  When  Agamemnon  had  wronged 
the  priest  of  Apollo,  the  god  shot  his  arrows  not 
at  Agamemnon  but  throughout  the  innocent 
Greek  host.  The  children  of  Israel  were  routed 
at  Ai,  because  Achan  had  taken  the  devoted  or 
forbidden  thing.  This  stage  of  tribal  responsi- 
bility seems  to  be  practically  universal.  It  gave 
the  law  an  iron  grip  on  the  people,  tamed  them, 
and  made  them  march  in  lock-step,  a  necessary 


212  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

stage  of  terrible  discipline.  But  only  under  the 
protection  and  stimulus  of  this  tribal  feeling  of 
common  responsibility  and  resulting  tribal  con- 
science could  the  individual  conscience  be  grad- 
ually awakened  and  developed,  and  finally  break 
through  the  cake  or  crust  of  custom  into  free- 
dom and  light. 

All  these  forces  and  influences  were  acting 
throughout  the  Neolithic  and  later  periods,  and 
are  still  with  us.  Perhaps  we  can  gain  a  toler- 
ably distinct  and  correct  view  of  Neolithic  re- 
ligion among  the  Mediterranean  peoples  by  a 
glance  at  the  ancient  Greek  mysteries.  Stu- 
dents of  Greek  art  and  literature  quite  naturally 
have  been  very  slow  to  take  interest  in  these 
crude,  often  ugly  and  indecent,  rituals.  But  for 
this  very  reason  the  primitive  stands  out  all  the 
more  sharply  defined  against  the  brilliant,  beau- 
tiful, artistic  Olympian  religion  of  Greek  art 
and  literature,  and  particularly  of  Homer. 
Students  like  Professor  Murray  could  hardly 
be  expected  to  explore  these  lower  strata  with 
great  sympathy.  For  this  very  reason,  as 
somewhat  unwilling  witnesses  to  whatever  is 
good  or  great  in  primitive  Greek  ritual,  their 
testimony  is  all  the  more  valuable,  though  prob- 
ably hardly  as  just  as  that  of  Miss  Harrison.1 

*S09. 


NEOLITHIC   RELIGION  213 

We  shall  follow  mainly  Professor  Murray's  vivid 
portrayal.1  In  his  Saturnia  Regna  he  pictures 
the  ritual  and  belief  of  the  ancient  Greeks  be- 
fore the  arrival  of  Achseans  or  Hellenes  in  any 
strict  sense  of  the  word.  Strictly  speaking,  it  is 
a  description  of  the  religion  of  the  Bronze  Age 
during  the  earlier  part  of  the  second  millennium 
B.  C.  It  has  been  growing,  developing,  and 
undergoing  modifications  since  Neolithic  time, 
but  in  all  its  essential  features  it  is  ancient. 

We  find  here  very  few  traces  of  the  chief 
Olympian  divinities,  which  belong  to  a  later  age 
than  the  objects  of  worship  or  cult  of  these  an- 
cient peoples  whom  we  venture  to  call  Pelasgi. 
They  worshipped  powers  or  daemons  in  indefinite 
numbers,  but  with  no  individual  names:  rep- 
resented, if  at  all,  by  emblems  or  symbols,  very 
rarely  in  bodily  human  form.  Of  these  spirits 
of  death,  disease,  madness,  and  calamity  there 
were  "thousands  upon  thousands,  from  whom 
man  can  never  escape  or  hide."  So  much  is 
mainly  a  heritage  from  Paleolithic  times.  But 
the  conception  of  spirit  has  grown  more  clear, 
distinct,  and  elevated,  as  we  saw  in  our  study  of 
burial  rites. 

But  Neolithic  men  lived  in  communities  and 
devoted    themselves   largely   to   tillage    of   the 

lS07. 


214  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

ground  and  to  raising  sheep,  goats,  swine,  and 
cattle.  Their  life  was  still  precarious.  "Their 
food  depended  on  the  crops  of  one  tiny  plot  of 
ground.  All  the  while  they  knew  almost  nothing 
of  the  real  causes  that  made  crops  succeed  or  fail. 
They  only  felt  sure  it  was  a  matter  of  pollution, 
of  unexpiated  defilement.  It  is  this  state  of 
things  that  explains  the  curious  cruelty  of  agri- 
cultural works,  which  like  most  cruelty  had  its 
roots  in  terror,  terror  of  the  breach  of  taboo  — 
the  'Forbidden  Thing.'" 

Neolithic  man,  with  his  new  discoveries  and 
industries,  had  given  new  hostages  to  fortune, 
and  a  new  and  wider  scope  of  application  to 
the  old  doctrine  of  taboo  and  of  tribal  responsi- 
bility. This  strengthened  the  hold  of  the  priest 
or  magician  on  the  hopes,  fears,  and  faith  of 
his  people.  The  law  is  going  deeper  as  well  as 
wider.  There  arises  an  individual  feeling  of  pol- 
lution and  of  the  need  of  expiation  which  will 
blaze  out  in  the  oldest  Greek  tragedies  as  almost 
a  veritable  sense  of  sin.  We  might  almost  say 
that  a  sense  of  morality  toward  the  spirit  world 
is  now  appearing  in  a  religion  previously  almost 
or  quite  unmoral.  We  may  easily  overesti- 
mate the  extent  and  power  of  the  change,  but 
we  can  hardly  be  mistaken  in  recognizing  its 
dawn  and  the  vast  germinal  possibilities  of  this 
dim  feeling  or  conception. 


NEOLITHIC   RELIGION  215 

In  agriculture  and  throughout  nature  seed- 
time was  followed  by  harvest,  fall,  and  winter's 
gloom  and  death.  Then  in  the  next  spring  there 
was  a  return,  a  rebirth  or  a  resurrection.  If  the 
seed  failed  to  come  up,  if  the  blade  withered  or 
was  blighted,  it  was  because  the  vegetation  spirit 
or  daemon  had  failed  to  reappear  or  had  been  re- 
born weak  or  sickly,  and  all  this  because  some  one 
had  broken  taboo,  had  touched  the  forbidden 
thing.  This  must  be  prevented  at  all  cost,  they 
must  help  the  spirit.  Hence  there  must  be  every 
year  a  time  of  purification,  of  renovation,  when 
the  old  garments  and  utensils  and  everything 
which  could  carry  the  pollution  of  death  were 
cast  off  or  cleansed. 

All  these  conclusions,  and  some  others  of 
equal  importance  to  which  we  will  return  later, 
are  expressed  or  symbolized  in  the  great  Dro- 
mena,  festivals,  mysteries,  or  whatever  you  may 
call  these  rites  of  pre-Homeric  Greece.  Then, 
for  a  time,  they  are  partially,  though  never 
totally,  eclipsed,  by  the  brilliant  beauty  of  the 
Olympian  religion  with  its  glorious  temples, 
statues,  and  other  works  of  art. 

The  Olympian  gods  had  conquered  the  world. 
They  practise  neither  agriculture  nor  industry, 
nor  any  honest  work.  They  fight  and  feast  and 
drink  and  play.  They  are  conquering  chieftains, 
royal  buccaneers.     The  Olympian  religion  had 


216  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

its  time  and  place,  and  did  its  work.  It  swept 
out  many  indecent  features  of  the  older  cults, 
many  superstitions  and  abuses.  It  suited  the 
Achseans  and  their  civilization  exactly,  and  we 
can  never  forget  its  "sheer  beauty."  But  it 
went  bankrupt,  lost  its  hold  on  men's  minds  and 
hearts,  failed  and  faded  out.  Professor  Murray 
compares  its  end  to  that  of  a  garden  of  rare 
exotic  flowers  overrun  by  the  rank  weeds  which 
it  had  temporarily  displaced.  Miss  Harrison 
more  justly  compares  it  to  a  flower  withering 
because  cut  off  from  its  roots. 

There  was  vastly  more  vitality  in  the  ancient 
crude  symbols  and  chaos  of  conceptions  than 
in  the  ordered  and  artistic  Olympian  hierarchy 
with  its  marvellous  representations  of  the  gods 
in  human  or  superhuman  form  and  beauty. 
Even  its  art  and  literature  could  not  save  it. 
It  had  lost  its  mysticism.  The  old  Neolithic 
religion,  handed  down  by  peasants  and  artisans 
reoccupied  the  field,  transformed  sometimes  al- 
most beyond  recognition,  like  the  Ugly  Duck- 
ling of  the  fairy  tale.  It  returned  triumphant 
through  sheer  power  of  unlimited  vitality  and 
adaptability.  Plato  draws  his  finest  illustrations 
from  its  mysteries,  out  of  which,  also,  the  Greek 
drama  arose.  Paul  quotes  from  them  or  from 
a  similar  stratum  of  belief. 


NEOLITHIC  RELIGION  217 

Some  of  the  many  sources  of  its  vitality  are 
obvious.  It  was  rooted  in  the  firm  conviction 
of  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  world  toward  and 
into  which  its  every  rootlet  was  forcing  its  way 
and  from  which  it  drew  nourishment  and  power. 
We  might  better  change  the  illustration  and  say 
that  it  was  slowly  developing  a  spiritual  eye 
which  peered  into  a  higher  world  and  developed 
in  keenness  and  clearness  of  vision  in  response 
to  the  higher  pulsations.  By  patient  experi- 
ment and  experience,  which  produced  a  hope 
that  could  not  make  ashamed  and  a  faith  in 
which  hope  and  experiment  combined,  it  was 
feeling  its  way  into  spiritual  knowledge.  It 
knew  nothing  of  practical  science  or  of  material 
cause  and  effect.  But  its  world  pulsated  with 
the  universal  life.  It  recognized  the  law  of  for- 
bidden things  and  the  sure  penalty  of  law- 
breaking.  It  had  a  tribal  conscience  and  recog- 
nized the  need  of  purification.  It  had  the 
promise,  at  least,  of  individual  conscience  and 
consciousness  of  sin. 

Its  symbol  was  the  mystery  which  lifted  only 
a  corner  of  the  veil  and  left  an  abundant  op- 
portunity for  wonder,  imagination,  thought,  and 
mysticism,  which  was  entirely  lacking  in  the 
perfect  statue  and  the  finished  creed.  It  made 
man,    through    its    sympathetic    magic,    a    co- 


218  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

worker  with  his  divinities  or  daemons  in  gaining 
the  answer  to  an  intensive  desire  or  prayer 
acted  by  all  the  members  of  the  community 
with  all  their  united  might,  instead  of  expressed 
merely  in  words,  the  utterance  of  his  whole 
being  and  life.  Such  a  system  or  chaos  over- 
flows with  sublime  possibilities. 

The  introduction  of  agriculture  had  produced 
another  most  important  change  in  religious 
views  and  ritual.  In  tillage  the  earth  brought 
forth  and  gave  birth  to  the  crops  which  furnished 
their  chief  food  supply,  and  probably,  in  their 
view,  to  animals  and  men  also;  just  as  the 
human  mother  gives  birth  to  the  child.  Hence 
there  was  a  wide-spread  belief  in,  and  cult  of, 
an  earth  divinity,  of  course  female,  or  in  a 
goddess  or  dsemon  of  fertility.  She  is  some- 
times or  usually  accompanied  by  a  male  partner, 
companion  or  son,  but  he  occupies  a  lower 
place. 

This  cult  of  the  goddess  seems  to  have  been 
a  marked  feature  of  Neolithic  religion.1  We 
find  it  in  the  remains  of  the  Minoan  periods  in 
Crete;  Isis  and  her  companion  god  Osiris  were 
very  prominent  in  Egypt.  The  cult  was  wide- 
spread throughout  Asia  Minor:  Diana,  or  better 
Artemis,  of  the  Ephesians,  Ma  in  Anatolia,  the 

1  315-319. 


FEMALE  IDOLS,  THRACE 


FEMALE  IDOL,  ANAU 

Reproduced  from  "Explorations  in  Turkestan."     Carnegie  Institute  of  Washington, 
Publishers. 


NEOLITHIC   RELIGION  219 

great  goddess  of  the  Hittites  are  a  few  examples. 
Farther  eastward  we  find  Astarte.  Pumpelly 
found  a  female  idol  (Astarte?)  at  Anau.  The 
cult  dots,  if  it  does  not  cover,  the  old  middle 
migration  route.  We  remember  the  wide-spread 
distribution  of  the  painted  pottery  from  Susa 
to  Anau  and  over  to  Boghaz-keui  in  the  land  of 
the  Hittites.  Art  and  religion  are  closely  re- 
lated during  the  early  times  and  a  wide-spread 
type  of  art  suggests,  though  it  does  not  prove, 
an  accompanying  form  of  religion  similar 
throughout  the  same  wide  area.  In  Greece  we 
find  Demeter,  and  in  "Pelasgic  Athens"  the 
goddess  Athena  always  held  the  highest  place. 
Hera  may  well  have  been  another  great  goddess 
of  the  Pelasgi.  When  the  conquering  Achseans 
came  in  and  their  chieftains  wedded  the  prin- 
cesses of  the  land,  they  married  their  god  Zeus 
to  the  goddess  of  the  land.  Hence  this  cult  has 
been  displaced  and  its  records  blotted  out  by 
later  changes.  That  so  many  traces  of  it  out- 
lasted the  Bronze  Age  is  a  proof  of  its  firm  hold 
and  great  vitality. 

We  have  studied  these  ancient  cults  in  Greece 
and  the  Mediterranean  basin  because  here  they 
are  easily  discovered  and  can  be  restored.  They 
are  covered  by  only  a  thin  layer  of  later  cults 
which  could  not  destroy  their  vitality.     When 


220  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

we  attempt  to  explore  northern  Europe  the 
situation  is  quite  different.  Christianity  blotted 
out  all  traces  of  the  worship  of  Odin  and  Thor; 
what  it  could  not  blot  out  it  took  over  into  its 
own  service  in  a  modified  form.  Behind  Thor 
and  Odin  we  see  the  shadowy  form  of  Dyaus 
(Ziu?),  perhaps  a  sky -god  akin  to  the  Hellenic 
Zeus,  whose  name  has  come  down  to  us  in  our 
weekday,  Tuesday.  Behind  all  these  we  must 
search  for  traces  of  the  deeply  buried  and  al- 
most obliterated  genuine  Neolithic  cults.  These 
traces  could  persist  only  as  superstitions  of 
peasants. 

We  notice  first  of  all  that  we  find  one  race 
extending  northward  along  the  coast  of  France 
into  England  and  Denmark,  the  zone  of  the 
megalithic  monuments.  In  this  zone  we  find 
figurines  and  carvings  of  divinities.  Here  De- 
chelette  tells  us  that  the  female  divinity  was 
undoubtedly  preferred  as  the  guardian  of  the 
tombs.1  This  zone  was  so  closely  connected 
with  the  Mediterranean  region  that  we  should 
expect  nothing  else. 

In  southeastern  Europe,  around  the  valley  of 
the  Danube,  at  Cucuteni,  Jablanica,  and  else- 
where, we  find  figurines,  and  here  again  the  fe- 
male divinity  is  at  least  the  more  prominent,  if 

1  A:  594-603,  362. 


NEOLITHIC  RELIGION  Ml 

not  decidedly  dominant.1  Dechelette  tells  us  as 
to  its  source:  "From  the  earliest  times  striking 
analogies  have  been  proven  between  the  old 
villages  of  the  Danube  and  the  Balkans  and  the 
yEgean  settlements  of  the  Troad  and  Phrygia. 
Primitive  idols,  painted  pottery,  frequent  em- 
ployment of  the  spiral  in  decorative  art:  all 
these  occur  scattered  through  the  stations  of 
southeastern  Europe  in  Neolithic  times  and  in 
the  eastern  Mediterranean  basin  in  pre-My- 
cenaean  and  Mycenaean  days.  Between  Butmir 
(near  Sarajevo,  Bosnia)  and  Hissarlik  (Troy) 
these  discoveries  mark  the  routes  which  without 
doubt  were  already  opening  communication  be- 
tween the  pre-Hellenic  peoples  and  the  pre- 
Celtic  tribes."  Reinachadds:  " Eastern  Europe, 
part  of  Asia  Minor  and  of  Egypt,  have  been  re- 
vealed as  very  intense  centres  of  Neolithic  civi- 
lization."2 They  may  be  traced  in  rare  exam- 
ples still  farther  northward  into  Bohemia  and 
even  in  Thuringia.  But  their  distribution  out- 
side of  southeastern  Europe  is  very  sparse. 
Traces  of  the  worship  of  an  earth  mother,3 
though  vague  and  few,  can  still  be  discovered 
in  the  superstitions  of  the  peasant  folk  of  north- 
ern Germany.  A  primitive  belief  in  spirits  of 
the  earth,  of  vegetation,  of  fertility  —  of  daemons 

1B:  11,563.  *320.  3  316. 


222  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

who  preside  over  the  crops,  who  die  in  the 
autumn  or  winter  and  reappear  in  the  spring  — 
is  common  in  the  folk-lore  and  customs  of  the 
peasants  in  many  parts  of  Europe.  Our  May- 
pole has  an  interesting  history  and  is  probably 
the  last  survival  of  an  ancient  cult.  Still  other 
more  interesting  illustrations  might  easily  be 
cited.1 

The  Balder-myth  is  familiar  to  us  all.  He  is 
a  "rare  exotic,"  entirely  out  of  place  in  that 
circle  of  berserker  gods  and  brutal  giants  who 
lived  in  or  over  against  the  Norse  Valhalla,  but 
would  have  found  himself  at  home  in  the  land 
and  times  of  Dionysus.  Have  we  possibly  here 
an  intrusion  of  a  far  more  ancient  religious  ele- 
ment which  even  the  rude  dwellers  in  a  harsh 
Northland  could  not  forget,  and  would  not 
allow  to  die  ? 

Usually  accompanying  the  cult  of  the  god- 
dess we  find  frequent  and  wide-spread  traces  of 
a  related  trend  of  thought,  mother-right  (Mut- 
terrecht),  maternal  kinship,  matriarchy:  under 
which  were  generally  included  the  reckoning  of 
descent  in  the  female  line,  rights  of  inheritance 
by  the  daughter,  hence  female  rights  of  property 
and  general  high  social  and  economic  position 
of  woman.    These  features  need  not  be  united  — 

*322. 


NEOLITHIC   RELIGION  223 

they  may  appear  separately,  one  here  and  an- 
other there.  We  are  probably  not  studying  a 
system  of  thought  or  law,  but  a  general  ten- 
dency of  life.1 

Mother-right,  to  use  the  most  general  term, 
survived,  partially  at  least,  down  to  historic 
time  in  Egypt.  It  persisted  in  Asia  Minor. 
Perhaps  it  crops  out  in  the  story  of  the  Amazons. 
We  find  traces  of  it  in  ancient  law  and  custom 
in  northern  Europe.  Says  Hoernes:  "Among 
the  Greeks,  Romans,  Celts,  Germans,  and  Slavs, 
remains  of  mother-right  occur  even  in  historic 
times."2  Wundt  thinks  that  maternal  kinship 
was  once  universal.3  We  have  no  time  or  room 
to  discuss  the  origin  of  mother-kinship.  We 
may  yet  find  that  it  and  mother-right  rep- 
resent distinct  forms  of  a  deep-seated  universal 
tendency,  often  of  independent  origin,  occurring 
usually  together  but  sometimes  separate. 

Something  akin  to  mother-right,  and  to  a 
high  position  and  dominating  influence  of  woman 
in  the  family  and  in  society,  is  only  what  we 
should  expect  at  this  time.  WTe  have  seen  that 
women  were  the  first  great  discoverers  and  in- 
ventors; discoverers  and  founders  of  all  our 
household  arts  and  crafts  as  well  as  of  most 
of  our  science.     Women  were  the  first  spinners 

1  318,  321.  2  B:  II,  585.  3  O:  173. 


224  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

and  weavers,  the  first  potters.  They  were  the 
first  herbalists  and  botanists  and  the  first 
household  physicians.  In  the  care  of  the  chil- 
dren they  were  compelled  to  be  alert,  quick- 
minded,  ready  for  all  sorts  of  emergencies. 
Paleolithic  man  was  a  mere  hunter;  the  rest  of 
the  time  he  ate  and  loafed.  The  woman  pro- 
vided the  vegetable  food,  as  well  as  much  of  the 
animal,  and  became  the  first  gardener  or  farmer. 
She  introduced  tillage  of  the  ground,  and  thus 
became  economically  by  far  the  more  important 
member  of  the  partnership,  and  she  probably  had 
by  far  the  more  alert,  quick-witted  brain. 

The  establishment  of  agriculture  was  followed 
by  the  cult  of  the  earth-mother,  who  gave  birth 
to  all  the  fruits  of  the  ground  and  probably  to 
all  life.  The  goddess,  with  or  without  a  male 
companion,  was  the  head  of  the  hierarchy. 
This  again  could  not  have  been  without  its  in- 
fluence. Says  Miss  Harrison:  "Woman  to  prim- 
itive man  is  a  thing  at  once  weak  and  magical, 
to  be  oppressed,  yet  feared.  She  is  charged  with 
powers  of  child-bearing  denied  to  man,  powers 
only  half  understood,  sources  of  attraction  but 
also  of  danger  and  repulsion,  forces  that  all  over 
the  world  seem  to  fill  him  with  dim  terror. 
The  attitude  of  man  to  woman  and,  though  per- 
haps to  a  less  degree,  of  woman  to  man  is  still 


NEOLITHIC   RELIGION  225 

essentially  magical.  Man  cannot  escape  being 
born  of  woman:  but  he  can,  and  if  he  is  wise 
he  will,  as  soon  as  he  comes  to  manhood,  per- 
form ceremonies  of  riddance  and  purgation."1 

One  other  fact  deserves  notice.  In  times  of 
dearth  the  savage  man  always  eats  up  all  the 
grain  reserved  as  seed  for  the  next  year,  and 
there  is  none  to  sow.  This  is  the  rock  on  which 
attempts  to  introduce  agriculture  among  savages 
or  nomads  have  usually  been  shipwrecked. 
Here  the  priest,  o%  perhaps  priestess,  of  the  god- 
dess came  to  her  aid,  armed  with  the  weapon 
of  taboo.  Against  this  alliance  the  poor,  stupid, 
clumsy,  and  slow-witted  Neolithic  man  struggled 
in  vain.  He  could  vent  his  fury  by  pulling  his 
wife  about  by  the  hair,  but  this  availed  little  or 
naught.     He  had  to  submit  and  be  resigned. 

Female  magic  increases  in  power  as  we  ap- 
proach the  frontier  and  frontier  life.  At  the 
fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  northern  tribes  swept 
away  the  old  civilization.  Grass  grew  in  the 
ruined  cities,  only  villages  remained  inhabited. 
The  priests,  by  a  liberal  preaching  of  hell  and 
other  dire  torments,  attempted  to  subdue  these 
barbarians  to  law  and  to  introduce  order.  Agri- 
culture and  industry  rearose  or  returned  slowly. 
Finally  after  the  "dark  ages"  great  cathedrals 

^OS:  36. 


226  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

sprang  up,  dedicated  not  to  apostles  or  martyrs 
but  to  the  Virgin,  Queen  of  Heaven.  Mr. 
Adams  tells  us  that  at  this  time  the  women  of 
France  were  the  real  leaders.  Is  this  apparent 
parallelism  mere  chance,  or  is  it  due  to  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  similarity  in  conditions? 

Some  one  has  said  that  our  Neolithic  ances- 
tors, especially  the  megalith -builders,  were  priest- 
ridden.  If  he  had  added  that  they  were  tamed 
and  led,  and  very  possibly  diligently  hen-pecked, 
by  a  veritable  matriarchate,  I  suspect  that  he 
would  have  discovered  and  correctly  estimated 
the  two  great  sources  of  their  marvellous  prog- 
ress. For  at  this  stage,  as  at  some  others,  the 
priests  and  the  women  were  the  elite,  and  the 
government  was,  therefore,  ideal  for  its  day. 

But  the  tendency  was  based  upon  something 
far  broader  and  deeper  than  changing  social  and 
economic  conditions  and  religious  feeling.  Even 
the  "mere  man"  must  admit  that  it  was  bi- 
ological and  natural.  "Nature,"  says  Hum- 
boldt, "has  taken  woman  under  her  special  pro- 
tection." She  has  always  been  partial  to  the 
female.  Throughout  the  long  period  of  mam- 
malian evolution  she  has  showed  very  little  re- 
gard for  the  males.  The  more  they  fight  and 
kill  one  another  off,  the  fewer  useless  individuals 
to  feed.     The  same  tendency  reaches  its  logical 


NEOLITHIC  RELIGION  227 

conclusion  in  the  parthenogenesis  of  insects. 
Havelock  Ellis  says  of  woman:  "She  bears  the 
special  characteristics  of  humanity  in  a  higher 
degree  than  man,  and  represents  more  nearly 
than  man  the  human  type  which  man  is  ap- 
proximating." He  boldly  asserts  that  man 
seems  to  be  the  "weaker  vessel,"  and  brings 
strong  arguments  for  his  assertion.1 

"Das  Ewig-weibliche 
Zieht  uns  hinan." 

The  buried  Pelasgic  religion  regained  its  right- 
ful place.  It  had  more  vital  reality  than  the 
Olympian.  Has  the  great  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  in  its  worship  of  the  Virgin,  retained  at 
least  the  symbol  of  an  element  of  vital  reality 
which  we  Protestants,  in  our  recoil  from  so- 
called  "Mariolatry,"  have  neglected  to  our 
cost  in  favor  of  a  purely  paternal  conception  of 
God  ?     We  leave  this  question  to  the  theologians. 


CHAPTER  XI 
PROGRESS 

IT  is  a  far  cry  and  long  and  weary  road  from 
the  ape  descending  from  the  trees  and  the 
ape-man  shuffling  over  the  ground,  keeping 
close  to  his  arboreal  refuge,  to  the  lake-dweller 
and  builder  of  stone  monuments.  There  was 
very  little  in  the  appearance  or  structure  of  the 
ape-man  to  encourage  great  hopes  for  the  future. 
The  sleek,  graceful,  wiry,  well-armed  cats  were 
far  more  attractive,  promising,  and  thrilling  ac- 
tors on  the  world's  stage.  Why  did  not  they 
progress,  win  the  future,  and  insure  that  all  the 
future  meetings  of  art  and  learning  should  be 
held  on  the  back  fence?  They  certainly  did 
not  progress  —  that  is  a  stubborn  fact. 

They  had  largely  or  completely  exhausted  the 
possibilities  of  their  special  line  of  development; 
as  cats  they  were  perfect  and  could  dominate  the 
portion  of  the  world  in  which  as  cats  they  were 
solely  interested.  This  was  an  impassable  bar 
to  progress.  Why  should  they  change  ?  They 
were  so  thoroughly  conformed  to  the  environ- 
ment of  their  time  and  conditions  that  any 
marked  change  would  have  been  a  disadvantage. 
But  when  conditions  did  change,  and  the  fashion 

228 


PROGRESS  229 

of  the  world  which  had  produced  them  passed 
away,  they  became  out  of  fashion,  "back  num- 
bers," incapable  of  meeting  new  emergencies 
and  crises  —  like  men,  parties,  and  governments 
in  all  ages  of  human  history.  They  suffered 
from  overadaptation  and  the  resulting  limita- 
tions. 

Man  did  not  make  this  mistake.  Isolated 
tribes  and  even  races  might  settle  down  in  con- 
tentment, become  completely  adapted  to  easy 
conditions  of  life,  and  stagnate  or  degenerate. 
But  a  saving  remnant  was  always  marching 
out  into  new  physical  or  social  surroundings, 
exposed  to  new  needs,  fears,  and  opportunities, 
and  readapting  itself  to  meet  and  profit  by  them. 
Man  was  not,  and  could  not  be,  precocious. 
He  was  always  a  bundle  of  possibilities  and 
great  expectations,  which  he  has  even  now  only 
begun  to  realize. 

Overpopulation,  or  other  pressure  in  his  pri- 
meval home,  resulted  in  great  racial  migrations, 
sending  him  all  over  the  world  to  seek  his  for- 
tune. He  became  one  of  the  very  few  physically 
cosmopolitan  animals,  living  everywhere  from 
the  equator  to  the  Arctic  zone.  He  became 
toughened  and  hardened  and  adaptable,  able 
to  live  under  the  most  trying  circumstances. 
Everywhere  he  had  to  be  a  close  observer,  watch- 


230  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

ful  and  wary.  He  was  weak  and  defenseless, 
and  his  life  depended  upon  his  quick  recognition 
of  "nature's  signs  of  displeasure,"  upon  the  full 
exercise  of  his  few  small  wits.  He  learned  to  be 
faithful  in  a  few  things.  We  need  not  repeat 
or  review  this  weary  chapter  of  his  history. 

"  There  were  years  that  no  one  talked  of.     There  were 
times  of  horrid  doubt. 
There  was  faith  and  hope  and  whacking  and  despair." 

Man  was  experimenting  with  all  kinds  of  cli- 
mates and  conditions.  It  was  in  the  hard  and 
cold  northern  regions  that  he  developed  farthest, 
though  less  rapidly  at  first.  We  have  already 
glanced  at  the  educational  results  of  language, 
of  family  life  in  the  rock-shelter  around  the  fire, 
of  the  fashioning  and  use  of  tools,  of  his  love  of 
ornaments  and  display,  of  his  dawning  and  clear- 
ing self -consciousness,  of  the  beginnings  of  own- 
ership. We  have  noticed  his  burial  rites  and 
their  suggestions.  All  these  may  have  been 
rude  and  crude,  but  they  contained  the  germs 
of  vast  possibilities,  though  painfully  slow  of 
development.  His  "castles  in  Spain"  were  his 
richest  possessions,  though  he  probably  never 
knew  or  suspected  them.  One  hundred  thou- 
sand years  of  human  life  in  Europe  produced 
nothing  higher  than  Neanderthal  man. 


PROGRESS  231 

Suddenly,  at  the  beginning  of  Upper  Pale- 
olithic time  Cro-Magnon  man  appeared.  His 
splendid  physique  and  large  brain,  his  produc- 
tion and  appreciation  of  art,  and  many  other 
qualities,  have  led  some  one  to  speak  of  him  as 
the  "prehistoric  Greek."  In  our  enthusiasm  we 
may  easily  overestimate  his  powers;  but,  as  we 
study  him  and  his  work,  we  feel  that  here  was 
a  great  race,  and  that  now  some  great  human 
possibilities  are  to  be  fully  attained  and  made 
permanent.  Apparently  he  had  come  from  the 
plateau  region  of  western  Asia.  Near  his  birth- 
place there  must  have  been  other  peoples  ca- 
pable of  great  things.  We  remember  that  Susa 
was  probably  founded  not  much  later  than  the 
beginning  of  the  Magdalenian  epoch  in  Europe. 
But  the  Cro-Magnon  folk  decreased  in  numbers, 
in  stature,  apparently  also  in  ability  and  vitality. 
During  the  period  of  transition  to  Neolithic  time 
Europe  was  occupied  only  by  a  sparse  population 
of  fishermen  along  the  rivers,  while  barbarous 
hunting  tribes  were  working  their  way  north- 
ward toward  the  Baltic.  The  shell-heaps  of 
Denmark  are  the  monuments  of  the  attainments 
of  this  epoch. 

A  higher  civilization  had  already  entered  the 
Mediterranean  basin.  It  was  building  houses, 
villages,  possibly  forerunners  of  the  Greek  city- 


232  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

states.  Especially  in  Greece  they  were  suffi- 
ciently separated  to  allow  independence  of  de- 
velopment and  great  variety,  and  yet  near 
enough  to  one  another  to  prevent  the  ill  effects 
of  complete  isolation.  Here  there  was  rapid 
interchange  and  improvement  of  physical  and 
mental  attainments,  mental  stimulation  and 
rivalry,  change  and  progress.  Implements, 
weapons,  pottery;  new  discoveries,  inventions, 
ideas,  arts,  and  habits  of  life  and  thought  spread 
slowly  and  gradually  from  these  centres  of  pro- 
gressing culture  far  to  the  northward.  This  was 
undoubtedly  one  important  source  of  stimuli. 
But  we  must  not  overestimate  its  influence.1 

It  spread  through  France  into  England  and 
Denmark.  As  time  went  on  this  northward 
current  increased  and  strengthened  until,  during 
the  Bronze  period,  the  Baltic  region,  especially 
Denmark,  became  almost  a  second  Mediter- 
ranean centre  of  culture  and  art;  just  as  at  a 
far  later  time  Flemish  cities  became  the  Venices 
of  the  north.  But  the  north  was  never  a  beg- 
garly dependent  and  imitator  of  the  south.  It 
selected  and  accepted  only  what  it  would,  almost 
always  modified  and  frequently  improved  what 
it  had  selected. 

The    larger    part    of    central    and    northern 

1  H:  20. 


AXCIENT  FISHERMEN 

From  the  mural  painting  by  Feruaud  Cormon  iu  the  Museum  d'Histoire  Naturelle,  Paris 


PROGRESS  233 

Europe  lay  outside  of  this  great  current  and  was 
reached  by  it  only  slightly  and  very  indirectly. 
These  regions  or  provinces  were  largely  working 
out  their  own  civilization  and  culture. 

What  then  was  the  real  source  of  Neolithic 
progress  ? x  It  is  not  to  be  sought  in  great  wars 
and  revolutions.  Genuine  wars  are  carried  on 
by  nations  with  a  national  government,  and  as 
yet  there  were  no  nations,  and  even  tribal  gov- 
ernment—  outside  of  religion,  the  great  bond  of 
tribal  unity  at  this  stage  —  was  probably  weak, 
loose,  and  inefficient.  There  were  no  such 
strong  towns  or  city-states  as  sprang  up  later 
in  Greece.  There  were  here  no  nomadic  hordes 
to  be  driven  by  drought  from  their  withering 
pastures  to  migrate  en  masse  and  force  their 
way  into  less  thirsty  and  starving  regions. 
There  was,  as  yet,  no  great  overpopulation  of 
mountainous  areas  compelling  raids  or  forays 
into  piedmont  zones.  The  nearest  approach  to 
this  condition  is  the  slow,  evidently  peaceful 
penetration  of  parts  of  France  by  broad-heads 
from  its  eastern  uplands  filtering  in  and  mixing 
with  the  long-headed  older  population,  and  be- 
traying their  arrival  mainly  by  a  change  in  form 
of  head  and  rise  of  cephalic  index. 

There  was  little  wealth  to  tempt  invasion. 

*179:  122  n. 


234  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

There  were  no  cities  or  large  towns  to  plunder. 
There  were  wide  stretches  of  land  thinly  or  not 
at  all  populated  and  open  to  any  newcomer. 
All  that  we  know  of  Neolithic  religion,  far  more 
dominant  in  tribal  life  and  action  than  the  very 
feebly  developed  political  or  social  organization, 
the  cult  of  the  goddess,  and  the  accompanying 
mother-right,  suggest  peace.  The  great  inva- 
sions of  the  Bronze  and  Iron  periods  introduced 
or  stimulated  the  cult  of  war  gods  and  patriarchal 
family  life  and  kinship.  But  these  were  still  in 
the  future.  The  picture  of  Europe  at  this  time 
as  a  great  arena  of  roving  savages,  thirsting  for 
blood  and  always  at  war,  seems  to  be  a  carica- 
ture. 

The  people  of  the  banded  pottery  were  evi- 
dently peaceful.  They  left  no  weapons  except 
mattocks  and  hammers.  No  one,  I  believe, 
has  ever  accused  the  broad-heads  of  blood- 
thirst.  The  graves  of  northern  hunters  with 
corded  pottery  are  all  about  Grosgartach.  The 
little  village  was  deserted  and  decayed.  It 
showed  no  signs  of  having  been  burned.  The 
lake-dwellings  were  open  to  attack  at  all  times, 
especially  after  the  ice  had  formed  during  the 
winter.  Robenhausen  during  its  long  history 
burned  several  times ;  hardly  as  often  as  most  of 
our  New  England  villages.     Here  a  single  brand 


PROGRESS  235 

or  fire-tipped  arrow  in  a  thatched  roof  would 
have  destroyed  the  whole  settlement. 

Only  in  northern  Europe,  in  the  country  of 
the  corded  pottery,  do  we  find  great  attention 
paid  to  the  making  of  fine  weapons  like  the  flint 
daggers  and  axes.  Here  we  have  chiefly  herds- 
men and  hunters.  Here  there  were  probably 
village  incompatibilities  —  Donnybrook  fairs, 
cattle-lifting,  and  forays.  But  these  should 
hardly  be  dignified  with  the  name  of  wars.  We 
find  then  some  North  German  peoples  at  the 
very  end  of  the  Neolithic  period  pushing  south- 
ward, often  by  peaceable  infiltration,  sometimes 
perhaps  by  violent  incursions,  when  the  resis- 
tance was  great.1 

Says  Wundt:2  "So  long  as  he  is  not  obliged 
to  protect  himself  against  peoples  that  crowd 
in  upon  him,  primitive  man  is  familiar  with  the 
weapon  only  as  an  implement  of  the  chase. 
The  old  picture  of  a  war  of  all  with  all,  as  Thomas 
Hobbes  once  sketched  the  natural  state  of  man, 
is  the  very  reverse  of  what  obtained.  The  natu- 
ral condition  is  one  of  peace,  unless  this  is  dis- 
turbed by  external  circumstances,  one  of  the 
most  important  of  which  is  contact  with  a  higher 
culture." 

We  remember,  also,  the  fewness  of  fortified 

1260.  !0:  111,33. 


236  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

villages  in  northern  Europe  until  toward  the  end 
of  the  Neolithic  period,  and  then  mainly  along 
great  routes  of  migration ;  and  around  mines  and 
workshops.  They  seem  to  fail  altogether  in 
Scandinavia  at  this  time.  Even  the  wars,  bat- 
tles, or  quarrels  which  occurred  probably  hin- 
dered progress  far  more  than  they  aided  it. 
Haeckel  in  his  younger  days  was  fierce  in  his 
denunciations  of  the  stupidity  of  war. 

Political  or  economic  revolutions  could  hardly 
occur  when  there  was  probably  little  organized 
government  and  even  less  wealth  and  class 
difference. 

Conditions  in  France  may  have  been  some- 
what different.  Here  the  great  stone  monu- 
ments suggest  a  denser  population  under  a  more 
advanced  organization,  religious  or  political,  or 
both,  reminding  us  of  conditions  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean region,  with  whose  culture  it  was  closely 
connected.  Here  fortifications  seem  to  have 
been  quite  numerous.1  But  our  knowledge  is 
too  slight  to  allow  even  a  conjecture. 

In  the  southeastern  part  of  Europe  we  find 
the  people  of  the  banded  pottery  who  practised 
an  advanced  form  of  agriculture.  Here  ap- 
parently the  men  as  well  as  the  women  worked 
in  the  fields.     We  find  their  stone  mattocks  and 

1  A:  368. 


EARLY  AGRICULTURE 

From  the  mural  painting  by  Fernand  Cormon  iu  the  Museum  d'Histoire  Naturelle,  Paris. 


PROGRESS  237 

ploughshares.  Hoe-culture  was  giving  place  to 
ploughing.  Here  men  were  receiving  a  very 
different  education  and  training  from  the  hunt- 
ers, fishermen,  and  herdsmen  of  the  north, 
though  there  also  a  gradual  increase  of  tillage 
was  doubtless  taking  place.  They  were  tilling 
the  ground  laboriously,  monotonously,  doing 
what  was  wearisome  and  disagreeable  for  a  re- 
ward sometimes  large,  sometimes  scanty.  The 
peasant  farmer  learns  forethought,  thrift,  econ- 
omy, industry,  and  a  host  of  homely  virtues, 
far  less  known  to  hunter  or  herdsman.  He  is 
no  more  a  collector  taking  what  he  finds:  he  has 
gone  into  partnership  with  nature.  He  is  study- 
ing her  ways,  moods,  and  whims.  He  amasses 
a  steadily  increasing  store  of  most  valuable  lore 
concerning  climate,  weather,  soil,  plants,  an- 
imals, and  things.  He  is  rooted  in  a  little  patch 
of  ground.  His  outlook  is  narrow  and  he  is 
slow  to  change.  But  he  learns  his  lessons  thor- 
oughly. He  may  enter  the  school  unwillingly 
but  he  stays  in  it. 

He  has  a  permanent  home  even  if  it  is  hardly 
more  than  a  hut,  which  is  the  centre  of  his  life 
and  thought.  It  is  a  hard,  healthy  life,  and 
population  increases  rapidly  under  such  condi- 
tions. He  probably  has  a  large  family  of  chil- 
dren, and  they  educate  and  socialize  him  and 


238  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

one  another.  He  is  trained  and  moulded  by 
"home  surroundings."  Is  not  this  the  history 
of  the  frontiersman  or  homesteader  everywhere 
at  all  times?  The  home  and  family  attach- 
ments and  instincts  are  deeply  rooted  because 
very  ancient  and  entirely  natural. 

He  lives  in  a  village  or  neighborhood,  which  is 
hardly  more  than  a  great  patriarchal  family, 
closely  united  by  intermarriage,  and  by  the 
pressure  of  common  work  to  satisfy  common 
needs,  common  ownership  of  the  soil,  mutual 
aid  in  hard  times.  The  religious  rites  and  cere- 
monies, the  feasts  and  mysteries,  the  prayers  or 
magic,  are  all  community  affairs.  Many  of  the 
divinities  are  local.  These  religious  bonds  are 
all  the  firmer  and  more  compelling  because,  in 
the  lack  of  any  developed  and  permanent  politi- 
cal organization,  religion  is  the  great  tribal 
bond.  We  easily  forget  the  civilizing,  refining, 
and  improving  unremitting  pressure  and  power 
of  these  simple,  uninteresting  peasant  influences. 
He  is  learning  to  get  on  with  the  members  of 
the  family  and  neighborhood.  He  is  experi- 
menting upon  his  neighbors :  his  experiments  and 
experiences  may  often  be  very  trying  to  himself 
and  them;  the  results  may  sometimes  be  dis- 
couraging. But  he  is  not  only  practising  the 
essentials  and  fundamentals  of  morality,  very 


PROGRESS  239 

incomplete  and  without  code;  but  a  sort  of  pre- 
paratory course  in  government.  It  may  easily 
be  self-government  in  these  small  villages.  The 
town-meeting  originated  here  or  somewhat  far- 
ther north. 

We  have  already  seen  that  his  religion  had 
grown  out  of  the  experiences  of  his  daily  life. 
May  we  not  claim  that  science  and  a  sort  of 
philosophy  may  have  sprung  from  the  same 
source?  He  knew  nothing  of  cause  and  effect 
in  the  material  world.  But  he  was  seeking 
diligently  the  invisible  bond  of  relations  of 
things  and  events.  The  relation,  according  to 
his  views,  was  mainly  of  a  spiritual  character 
through  the  agency  of  daemons.  His  ritual,  call  it 
magic  if  you  will,  was  the  expression  of  his  con- 
viction that  results  in  the  material  world  might 
be  modified  by  his  lending  a  helping  hand  to 
all  the  beneficent  spirits.  He  indulged  freely 
in  hypotheses,  but  these  were  the  outgrowth  of 
millennia  of  experience  and  life,  a  very  healthy 
form  of  pragmatism.  He  who  has  never  laughed 
at  a  modern  scientific  theory,  useful  and  fruitful 
in  its  time  but  now  outgrown  and  replaced  by 
a  somewhat  better  one,  may  cast  the  first  stone 
at  his  "benighted"  Neolithic  ancestor. 

We  might  even  venture  to  suspect  that  in  his 
own  crude  way  he  was  a  philosopher.     He  must 


240  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

have  had  something  like  a  philosophy  of  life, 
even  if  it  was  hardly  more  than  a  dumb  instinct. 

Says  Miss  Harrison:  "Dike"  (usually  trans- 
lated justice),  "in  common  Greek  parlance  is  the 
way  of  life,  normal  habit.  Dike  is  the  way  of 
the  world,  the  way  things  happen,  and  Themis 
is  that  specialized  way  for  human  beings  which 
is  sanctioned  by  the  collective  conscience,  by 
herd  instinct.  A  lonely  beast  in  the  valley, 
a  fish  in  the  sea,  has  his  Dike,  but  it  is 
not  till  man  congregates  together  that  he  has 
his  Themis.  Greeks  and  Indians  alike  seem  to 
have  discovered  that  the  divine  way  was  also 
the  truth  and  the  life.  This  notion  of  the  way, 
which  was  also  the  truth  and  the  life,  seems  to 
have  existed  before  the  separation  of  Indian 
from  Iranian.  Closely  allied  to  Dike  and  to 
Vedic  Rta  is  the  Chinese  Tao,  only  it  seems  less 
moralized  and  more  magical.  Deep-rooted  in 
man's  heart  is  the  pathetic  conviction  that  moral 
goodness  and  material  prosperity  go  together, 
that  if  man  keep  the  Rta,  he  can  magically 
affect  for  good  nature's  ordered  going."  * 

Thus  primitive  man,  long  before  the  dawn  of 
anything  like  civilization,  was  seeking,  finding, 
clearing,  and  treading  out  the  "way"  to  an  or- 
dered, right,  and  healthy  individual  and  social 

'308. 


PROGRESS  241 

life  —  not  through,  but  to,  codes  of  morals  and 
systems  of  philosophy.  His  thought  was  more 
or  less  chaotic,  perhaps;  it  was  crudely,  often 
indecently,  expressed  in  ugly  form  or  action; 
but  it  was  always  acted  upon,  kept  close  to  life. 
We  might  possibly  call  him  an  "  Ur-pragrnatist," 
if  you  will  pardon  the  barbarism.  He  had 
neither  the  language  nor  the  "conveniences  for 
thinking"  and  other  things,  to  write  out  a  cool, 
logical  abstract  system  in  long  words.  In  this 
we  have  outrun  him  until  we  have  left  him  out 
of  sight.  His  philosophy  was  not  a  guide- 
book or  map,  but  a  rough  and  often  miry  trail. 
We  have  tried  to  express  briefly  the  results 
of  a  glance  at  the  agriculturists  of  southeastern 
Europe.  Before  the  close  of  the  Neolithic 
period  they  were  in  fairly  close  communication 
with  JEgean  culture  and  owed  considerable  or 
much  progress  to  stimuli  from  this  source.  In 
the  great  essentials  of  human  training  and  de- 
velopment something  quite  similar  might  be 
said  of  the  lake-dwellers  and  the  broad-heads 
of  eastern  France.  North  Germany  had  a  dif- 
ferent culture  and  probably  somewhat  differ- 
ent religious  cults  and  general  views  and  con- 
ceptions. France  and  England,  too,  represented 
a  quite  distinct  province  whose  peoples  were 
always   under   Mediterranean   influence.     Den- 


242  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

mark  was  already  a  meeting-place  for  a  variety 
of  cultures,  thoughts,  and  influences. 

Peoples  were  gradually  closing  in  from  all 
directions  on  the  central  provinces  of  northern 
Europe,  and  here  apparently  they  met.  We  find 
here  a  mixture  of  head-forms,  of  culture;  mix- 
ture or  modifications  of  styles  of  ceramic  orna- 
ment, of  burial  customs  —  all  suggesting  a  min- 
gling of  peoples  of  a  variety  of  cultures.  Here  at 
or  toward  the  end  of  the  Neolithic  period  was  the 
"melting-pot"  for  the  fusion  of  these  peoples  and 
their  cultures.  There  was  conflict  of  customs 
and  ideas,  of  ways  of  life.  There  was  probably 
much  incompatibility,  many  broken  heads.  The 
pacific  people  of  the  banded  pottery  seem  largely 
to  have  withdrawn,  or  been  driven  out,  before 
the  infiltration  or  invasions  of  northern  folk. 
It  was  hardly  a  comfortable  place  for  conserva- 
tive pacificists.  There  were  doubtless  battles  in 
many  regions  —  perhaps  now  and  here  we  might 
speak  of  wars.  In  some  places  there  may  have 
been  extermination  of  the  fighting  men.  But  in 
most  parts  there  was  large  fusion,  and  out  of 
this  mixture  of  cultures,  ideas,  thoughts,  and 
habits  of  life  came  the  culture  of  the  beginning 
of  the  Bronze  Age. 

The  great  characteristic  of  Neolithic  culture 
seems  to  be  a  rude,  often  barbarous,  sometimes 


PROGRESS  243 

ugly  but  generally  healthy,  always  hardy  and 
vigorous  growth  —  it  grew  "like  a  weed"  —  the 
manifestation  of  an  intense  vitality.  Because 
it  was  healthy  it  was  essentially  and  generally 
fairly  sane,  matter-of-fact,  whole,  and  balanced. 
The  Neoliths  were  certainly  no  "reversed  crip- 
ples," in  whom  one  or  two  of  the  less  essential 
powers  had  outgrown  and  dwarfed  the  man.  It 
was  an  adaptable  stock  giving  rise  to  many 
marked  and  vigorous  varieties,  from  whose  in- 
tercrossing something  great  and  good  could 
hardly  fail  to  arise. 

Green  refuses  to  write  a  "  trumpet-and-drum 
history  of  England."  "Happy  the  people  — 
here  we  cannot  say  nation  —  that  has  no  an- 
nals." Here  is  surely  a  certain  amount  of 
truth  which  we  may  be  in  danger  of  forgetting. 
In  plants,  and  often  in  men,  a  long  period  of 
silent  unnoticeable  growth  usually  precedes  the 
brief  season  of  flowers  and  fruit.  Is  this  the 
rule  in  racial,  or  internal,  development? 

Is  it  true,  as  some  historians  tell  us,  that  a 
dormant  period  of  national  history  best  repays 
investigation,  and  that  dormant  peoples  will 
bear  watching?  Is  the  dormant  nation  often 
storing  up  nutriment,  strength,  vitality,  just  as 
the  plant  is  doing  in  its  ugly  underground  roots 
and  stem?     Are  fallow  periods  necessary  to  its 


244  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

fertility  and  apparently  dormant  times  essential 
to  its  life  and  growth?  Must  periods  of  ener- 
getic action  and  effort  be  followed  by  times  of 
exhaustion  and  rest,  as  in  the  history  of  the 
strong  athlete  rejoicing  to  run  a  race? 

Is  China  awakening  from  just  such  a  dor- 
mant period  ?  What  of  India,  still  the  home  of 
philosophy  ?  Because  a  nation,  after  bearing  a 
marvellous  harvest  of  culture,  thought,  art,  or 
religion,  seems  barren  and  exhausted,  does  this 
discourage  or  arouse  the  hope  that  it  will  some 
day  produce  an  equal  or  greater  fruitage? 

How  about  "darkest  Africa"?  Here  surely 
we  have  a  case  of  degeneration  beyond  all  hope 
of  recovery,  not  to  mention  a  great  future.  But 
is  this  quite  as  certain  as  some  of  us  seem  to 
think  ?  Is  not  much  of  our  so-called  Occidental 
progress  really  an  orgy  of  wasted  energy,  neu- 
rotic excitement,  half-camouflaged  decadence, 
which  will  end  in  degeneration?  We  do  not 
know  yet.  May  there  some  day  be  a  family 
rather  than  league  of  nations  to  which  every 
one  will  contribute  according  to  its  special 
ability  ?  If  this  be  granted,  will  Huxley's  state- 
ment concerning  the  individual  be  applicable  to 
races  and  peoples:  "Its  aim  will  be  not  so  much 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  as  the  fitting  of 
as  many  as  possible  to  survive"?     These  are 


PROGRESS  245 

sphinx  questions  demanding  an  answer  from 
statesmen.  Unfortunately  most  of  our  states- 
men are  only  waiting  to  be  gathered  to  their 
fathers  in  the  graveyard  of  dead  politicians. 
We  will  turn  homeward  after  our  excursion, 
gladly  leaving  our  little  bundle  of  facts  and 
questions  at  the  door  of  the  philosopher  of  his- 
tory. 

But  one  question  confronts  us  directly.  Is 
our  whole  estimate  and  valuation  of  Neolithic 
life,  work,  and  progress  extreme  and  practically 
worthless  ?  Were  they,  in  spite  of  all  our  argu- 
ments, a  mob  of  crude,  worthless  barbarians, 
undeserving  of  any  gratitude  or  sympathy,  much 
less  of  respect  ?  Do  we  really  owe  anything  to 
them  ? 

One  historic  event  of  great  importance  had  its 
growth  and  rise  during  the  Neolithic  period  out 
of  Neolithic  life,  conditions,  and  culture.  This 
was  the  Aryan  culture  of  Persia  and  India,  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  and  of  our  northern  ancestors. 
No  one  seems  to  deny  its  importance  and  value. 
We  must  glance  at  its  origin  and  growth,  and 
see  if  it  supports  at  all  the  tentative  and  often 
conjectural  conclusions  at  which  we  have  ar- 
rived. This  will  be  the  object  of  our  work  and 
study  in  the  next  and  closing  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  COMING  OF  THE  INDO-EUROPEANS 

SAID  Max  Miiller  in  his  Biographies  of 
Words  :  "I  have  declared  again  and  again 
that,  if  I  say  Aryan,  I  mean  neither  blood 
nor  bones,  nor  hair  nor  skull;  I  mean  simply 
those  who  speak  an  Aryan  language.  The  same 
applies  to  Hindus,  Greeks,  Romans,  Germans, 
Celts,  and  Slavs.  When  I  speak  of  them  I 
commit  myself  to  no  anatomical  characteristics. 
The  blue-eyed  and  fair-haired  Scandinavians 
may  have  been  conquerors  or  conquered,  they 
may  have  adopted  the  language  of  their  darker 
lords  or  their  subjects,  or  vice  versa.  I  assert 
nothing  beyond  their  language.  ...  To  me 
an  ethnologist  who  speaks  of  Aryan  race,  Aryan 
blood,  Aryan  eyes  and  hair,  is  as  great  a  sinner 
as  a  linguist  who  speaks  of  a  dolichocephalic 
dictionary  or  a  brachy cephalic  grammar." 

We  may  well  take  this  warning  to  heart,  and 
remember  that  the  first  and  most  noticeable,  if 
not  the  one  essential,  characteristic  of  the 
Aryans  was  their  language.  For  the  sake  of 
convenience  and  clearness,  and  of  avoiding  rnis- 

246 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  247 

understanding  or  prejudice,  we  will  use  the 
word  Indo-European  for  the  whole  group  of 
languages  to  which  Miiller  applied  the  word 
Aryan.  These  languages  fall  into  two  great 
divisions  or  branches:  (1)  the  Indian  and  Ira- 
nian (Persian),  which  we  will  call  Aryan;  and 
(2)  the  European  branch,  including  Greek,  Latin, 
German,  Slavic,  and  others.  Our  first  question 
is:  what  inferences  can  we  safely  draw  from  a 
study  and  comparison  of  these  different  Eu- 
ropean and  Asiatic  languages  ?  Evidently  they 
have  all  sprung  from  a  parent  language  no  longer 
adequately  represented  by  any  one  of  them. 
They  have  all  been  considerably  or  greatly  modi- 
fied during  the  lapse  of  time.  They,  and  others 
whose  names  we  have  omitted,  are  all  sister 
languages  descended  or  developed  from  a  parent 
language  which  must  once  have  been  spoken  by 
a  people,  very  probably  representing  a  mixture 
of  races,  having  a  definite  local  habitation, 
cradle,  or  home.  Here  the  language  originated 
as  the  expression  of  a  certain  culture  or  civiliza- 
tion, and  from  this  region,  large  or  small,  it 
spread  into  Persia  and  India  and  throughout 
Europe.  The  wide  spread  of  the  language  tes- 
tifies to  the  superiority  in  some  important  re- 
spects of  either  language,  culture,  people,  or  all 
three.     We  may  well  recognize  two  homes,  the 


248  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

first,  original  cradle  of  the  language  and  cul- 
ture, and  the  second  homeland,  far  more  exten- 
sive, over  which  the  original  language,  probably 
with  well-marked  dialects,  was  used  just  before 
the  final  separation  and  dispersal. 

In  its  distribution  from  India  to  western 
Europe  it  must  often  have  wandered  far  from 
its  original  home.  Its  introducers  must  often 
have  been  few  compared  with  the  large  and  dense 
populations  among  which  they  came.  The 
Aryans  could  have  been  hardly  more  than  a 
handful  among  the  peoples  of  India.  Some- 
thing similar  may  be  said  of  its  introduction  into 
Europe  about  the  close  of  the  Neolithic  period. 
Middle  Europe  was  at  this  time  fairly  well  pop- 
ulated, at  least  in  its  more  fertile  regions.  The 
bearers  of  the  new  language  must  have  repre- 
sented a  ruling,  conquering,  or  otherwise  very 
influential  class,  else  it  would  never  have  been 
accepted  by  the  mass  of  the  people. 

When  the  original  or  modified  Indo-European 
language,  perhaps  in  several  distinct  dialects, 
was  introduced  into  Europe,  it  was  carried  to 
peoples  of  several  or  many  stocks  and  languages. 
These  had  to  learn  and  acquire  it  as  we  acquire 
a  foreign  language,  but  only  as  a  spoken,  un- 
written language.  Probably  no  one  of  them 
acquired  it  exactly  in  its  original  form.     It  was 


THE   INDO-EUROPEANS  249 

almost  impossible  for  them  to  pronounce  all  its 
consonants  or  combinations,  its  "shibboleths." 
They  retained  much  of  the  stress  and  accent 
and  more  of  the  cadence  of  their  own  tongue. 
Similarly  at  a  far  later  date  Latin  developed 
into  the  various  Romance  Languages  of  modern 
Europe. 

Under  the  new  conditions  content  and  mean- 
ings changed  as  well  as  forms  of  language. 
Words  little  used  in  the  new  home,  especially 
names  of  objects,  might  easily  be  lost,  while 
others  would  be  replaced  by  favorite  apt  words 
from  the  aboriginal  language.  A  name  might 
be  applied  to  a  new  object  and  thus  change  its 
meaning.  To  cite  a  familiar  modern  instance, 
the  robin  redbreast  of  America  is  quite  a  dif- 
ferent bird  from  that  of  England.  For  a  long 
time  it  was  supposed  that  the  occurrence  of  the 
root  of  the  word  "beech"  in  the  European  lan- 
guages proved  beyond  doubt  that  the  language 
must  have  originated  in  a  region  where  the 
beech-tree  was  common.  But  the  Greek  word 
derived  from  the  same  root  means  oak;  a  sim- 
ilar, perhaps  not  the  same,  root  word  in  Kurdish 
means  elm.  Our  knowledge  of  the  original 
meaning  of  the  word  is  very  uncertain.  Through 
all  the  languages  there  runs  a  single  word  for 
weaving  or  plaiting,  but  whether  the  original 


250  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

word  referred  to  the  weaving  of  cloth  or  to  the 
plaiting  of  mats  or  baskets  we  do  not  know. 

The  work  of  discovering  and  restoring  the 
original  language  is  difficult  and  far  from  fin- 
ished. But  the  comparative  philologists  or 
"linguistic  paleontologists"  have  established 
certain  facts,  or  at  least  theories,  on  which  we 
may  rely  with  a  fair  degree  of  confidence.  We 
find  names  for  all  the  most  important  domestic 
animals,  including  the  horse.  There  are  words 
for  the  wagon,  its  wheels,  and  various  other  parts. 
Words  for  tillage  and  land  cultivation  agree  in 
the  Western  branch,  but  are  far  less  noticeable 
in  the  Aryan  languages.  Here  the  vocabulary 
is  rather  that  of  the  herdsman.  This  seems  to 
allow  us  to  conclude  that,  when  Eastern  and 
Western  branches  separated,  and  probably  long 
before  that  time,  the  Eastern  people  were  herds- 
men paying  slight  attention  to  agriculture:  the 
Western  predominantly  tillers  of  the  ground. 

The  linguist,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is  fre- 
quently or  usually  unable  to  discover  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  word  in  the  original  language, 
and  hence  is  uncertain  as  to  the  degree  of  de- 
velopment of  any  art  or  technique.  But  the 
culture,  as  far  as  discovered,  seems  to  be  that  of 
the  average  of  Neolithic  peoples,  perhaps  fairly 
well   represented   by   that   of   the   Swiss   lake- 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  251 

dwellers.  It  may  have  varied  in  different  areas 
or  provinces.  The  language  seems  to  represent 
most  clearly  features  of  the  undivided  life  and 
settlement  of  the  people  or  peoples  when  it  had 
spread  over  a  wide  territory  and  become  the 
property  of  a  large  population,  otherwise  it 
would  be  impossible  to  explain  the  successive 
great  waves  of  Indo-European  migration.  The 
cradle  where  the  language  originated  and  took 
form  must  have  been  far  more  limited  and  the 
culture  simpler. 

The  original  language  contains  words  for 
summer  and  winter,  ice  and  snow;  it  tells  of  a 
fairly  cold  climate.  They  had  a  common  word 
for  metal,  probably  copper,  hence  they  were 
living  together  after  the  introduction  of  this 
metal.  They  lived  in  villages  apparently  sur- 
rounded by  a  hedge  or  wall,  or  some  sort  of 
fortification. 

The  family  was  decidedly  patriarchal.  Of 
the  older  mother-right  scarcely  more  than  traces 
remain,  survivals  from  an  older  alien  culture. 
The  goddess  is  no  longer  supreme.  A  new  divin- 
ity, a  sky-god,  or  sun-god,  or  manifestation  of 
light  or  brightness  had  already  appeared  —  the 
Greek  Zeus,  Latin  Ju-piter,  with  the  same  root 
appearing  in  all  the  languages.  The  earth- 
goddess  is  not  banished,  but  remains  as  consort 


252  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

of  the  male  divinity.  The  supreme  divinity  of 
the  religious  cult  is  no  longer  local.  There  is  in 
it  an  element  or  germ  of  universality  overleap- 
ing all  provincial  boundaries,  in  many  respects 
a  vast  improvement  over  the  old  Neolithic  re- 
ligions. It  generally  held  its  own,  but  only 
by  adopting  much  from  the  older  native  re- 
ligions on  which  it  was  superimposed,  as  was 
the  case  in  Greece. 

Indo-Europeanism  must  have  had  something 
to  recommend  it  and  make  it  highly  attractive 
to  enable  it  to  spread  so  fast  and  far.  The 
language  itself,  while  apparently  somewhat 
clumsy,  was  certainly  rich  in  conceptions  and 
shades  of  expression.  The  clearness  and  beauty 
of  the  religious  cult  may  have  attracted  some, 
though  this  seems  doubtful.  All  these  features 
are  inadequate  to  explain  the  rapidity  and  ex- 
tent of  its  spread.  We  must  leave  this  problem 
for  the  present. 

Even  the  original  language  frequently  de- 
scribes the  same  object  or  even  action  by  words 
having  very  different  roots.  It  shows  great 
variety  in  synonyms  and  inflections.  Feist 
compares  it  with  English  and  considers  it  a 
"mixed  language"  almost  from  the  start,  and 
many  facts  seem  to  favor  this  view.  This  does 
not   surprise   us   when    we   remember   that   its 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  253 

growth  and  development  were  late,  during  the 
latter  half  of  Neolithic  time,  when  great  move- 
ments and  minglings  of  people  were  taking  place 
and  long  routes  of  trade  and  communication 
had  opened. 

The  date  of  the  earliest  migrations  of  Indo- 
European  peoples  is  roughly  indicated  by  the 
presence  of  a  word  for  metal,  probably  copper, 
in  the  original  undivided  language.  Aryan 
names  appear  in  western  Asia  about  1400  or 
1500  B.  C.  Meyer  says  that  the  Achseans  had 
arrived  in  the  southern  Balkans  as  early  as 
2000  B.  C.  and  reached  Greece  about  1200  or 
1300  B.C.;  the  Dorians  followed  about  1100 
B.  C.  We  can  hardly  be  far  from  the  truth  if 
we  consider  that  they  were  in  their  original  home 
until  about  2000  B.  C,  and  that  the  separation 
began  very  soon  after.  Their  development  was 
a  product  of  the  Neolithic  period,  their  spread 
was  the  striking  event  of  earliest  historic  times. 

Inasmuch  as  their  migrations  are  so  recent, 
especially  when  compared  with  those  of  the 
Semites,  it  ought  to  be  possible  for  us  to  dis- 
cover certain  traits  which  they  brought  with 
them  from  the  homeland.  The  Achseans  had 
apparently  marched  southward  from  Hungary 
or  thereabouts  through  the  Balkans  into  Greece, 
arriving  there  not  far  from  1200  B.  C.     They 


254  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

did  not  come  in  one  invading  horde  but  in  suc- 
cessive waves,  each  crowding  the  other  before 
it.  Behind  the  Achseans  came  the  Dorians, 
behind  them  were  the  Thracians  and  other 
wayfarers.  Their  unit  of  organization  was  the 
band,  brotherhood,  or  clan,  each  with  its  own 
leader,  reminding  us  of  the  Scotch  clans  of  a 
century  or  two  ago.  They  came  with  their 
horses  and  carts,  perhaps  with  war-chariots. 
They  were  the  "horse-taming"  Achseans.  They 
were  youthful,  red-blooded,  irresponsible  and 
irresistible,  careless,  untamed  barbarians,  swag- 
gering in  from  hard  battles  and  long  campaigns, 
having  seen  the  manners  and  tested  the  might 
of  many  peoples.  They  came  in  contact  with 
ancient,  settled,  staid,  conservative  Pelasgic 
wealth  and  culture.  They  were  the  rough 
riders  of  their  day.  They  were  hard  drinkers 
and  fighters;  loud,  boastful  talkers,  good-natured 
if  not  opposed;  good  "mixers." 

Their  chieftains  married  the  princesses  of  the 
old  regime,  who  seem  to  have  held  the  right  of 
succession  in  the  kingdom  or  city-state.  The 
wooing  was  rough  and  more  or  less  forceful;  but 
I  suspect  that  the  princesses  yielded  not  alto- 
gether unwillingly,  even  if  the  course  of  true 
love  did  not  always  continue  to  run  smooth  in 
after  years.     They  married  their  gods  to  the 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  255 

goddesses  of  the  land,  and  made  little  further  in- 
terference with  the  old  JEgesai  religion  or  popular 
life. 

In  comparison  with  the  native  peoples  who 
had  builded  Tiryns  and  Mycenae  the  Achseans 
were  probably  few,  scattered  over  Greece. 
They  probably  robbed  the  subject  peoples  with 
one  hand,  but  with  the  other  they  defended 
them  against  the  forays  of  sea-pirates  and  other 
enemies.  They  were  no  worse  than  former  na- 
tive rulers,  far  better  watch-dogs  of  the  city,  at- 
tractive leaders  of  an  admiring  crowd,  the  best 
possible  missionaries  of  a  new  culture  and  lan- 
guage. They  turned  the  old  Neolithic  world 
upside  down.  Evolution  had  brought  revolu- 
tion: old  things  passed  away  and,  for  a  time, 
all  things  became  new.  We  cannot  easily  over- 
estimate the  extent  and  importance  of  the 
change. 

The  leaders,  and  naturally  their  followers  to 
a  less  degree,  show  clearly  the  characteristics  of 
the  new  era,  which  Wundt  has  called  the  Age  of 
Heroes  in  distinction  from  the  Age  of  Totemism 
and  the  iron  supremacy  of  tribal  custom.  The 
chief  feature  was  the  rise,  development,  and 
dominance  of  individual  personality  in  the  lead- 
ers and  the  enthusiastic,  individual  loyalty  of  the 
members  of  the  brotherhood  or  clan.     Up  to 


256  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

this  time  the  individual  has  been  entirely  sub- 
merged in  the  customs  and  culture  of  the  tribe, 
whose  control  has  been  mostly  in  the  hands  of 
the  old  men  and  the  priests;  now  the  young  war- 
rior and  champion  has  grasped  the  reins.  In 
all  Homer's  pictures  the  ranks  of  the  common 
people,  however  firm,  count  for  little.  The 
battle  is  won  in  single,  hand-to-hand  combat  by 
the  leader  —  a  dour  giant  of  an  Ajax,  a  dashing 
Menelaus,  "good  at  the  rescue,"  a  crafty  Ulysses, 
a  heroic  Hector.  The  wisdom  of  old  Nestor  is 
endured  with  kindly  tolerance,  hardly  with  en- 
thusiasm. It  is  an  age  of  young  men  with  all 
their  virtues  and  vices.  But  every  leader  is 
a  distinctly  marked  individual;  no  two  are 
alike. 

City-states  are  beginning  to  appear,  but  their 
success  depends  very  largely  on  the  wisdom  and 
power  of  the  ruler,  who  seems  at  first  to  be  largely 
irresponsible,  a  despot  in  the  ancient  sense  of 
the  word.  It  is  anything  but  a  true  democracy, 
but  it  is  government  by  the  elite  of  their  day 
and  world.  The  new  era  or  Zeitgeist  is  putting 
its  stamp  on  all  its  peoples.  Homer's  descrip- 
tion of  the  Achseans  would  apply  almost  equally 
well  to  the  Celts  when  they  first  appear  in  his- 
tory; and  kindred  spirits  are  marching  and  fight- 
ing in  India  and  Persia.     All  seem  to  represent 


THE   INDO-EUROPEANS  257 

a  new  type  which  all  brought  from  the  common 
homeland. 

The  chieftains,  with  this  clan  or  brotherhood 
of  warlike  followers,  came  into  a  country  occu- 
pied by  agriculturists  or  peasants  unused  and 
untrained  to  war,  such  as  we  have  found  in  the 
Mediterranean  region  and  in  most  of  northern 
Europe.  Conquest  was  usually  easy  and  left 
little  bitterness.  There  was  no  national  con- 
sciousness or  pride  to  arouse  resistance.  It  was 
a  totally  different  kind  of  invasion  from  that  of 
nomadic  Semites  in  Asia,  or  of  Mongols  into 
Europe.  It  came  almost  as  a  new  movement, 
a  renaissance  for  which  the  people  were  ready. 
Celt  and  Greek  alike  were  usually  absorbed  and 
lost  in  the  masses  of  the  people  to  whom  they 
came.  Physically  they  produced  little  perma- 
nent change  in  the  people  with  whom  they 
mingled.  They  seem  to  have  accepted  fully  as 
much  as  they  contributed,  and  may  often  have 
received  credit  for  many  improvements  which 
they  really  had  little  share  in  bringing  about. 

We  have  already  seen  that  Greek  philosophy 
and  religion,  while  retaining  much  of  the  Olym- 
pian or  Indo-European  form,  sprang  essentially 
from  the  old  Pelasgic  cults  with  their  greater 
vitality.  How  far  were  Achaean s  and  Dorians 
responsible  for  the  glory  of  Greek  art,  especially 


258  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

in  "Pelasgic  Athens"?  The  answer  can  hardly 
be  as  obvious  and  sure  as  it  has  appeared  to 
some. 

How  far  was  Roman  government  and  law  due 
to  Indo-European  influence?  Neither  Greeks 
nor  Celts  seem  to  have  been  very  successful  in 
founding  great  or  permanent  states.  Italy  was 
far  less  easy  of  access  from  the  north  than  from 
Greece,  and  Rome  lay  well  southward  beyond 
the  Apennines.  Some  of  its  most  important 
political  features  seem  to  have  sprung  from  up- 
risings of  the  Plebs,  the  common  people,  prob- 
ably mostly  of  native  stock;  others,  perhaps, 
from  the  Etruscans.  I  cannot  attempt  to  an- 
swer this  question  or  any  one  of  many  similar 
ones.  The  Indo-Europeans  brought  in  a  new 
era  and  started  a  new  world;  but  just  what 
was  their  definite  and  permanent  contribution 
to  European  culture? 

Europe  had  been  long  enough  in  the  school 
of  Neolithic  discipline.  Agriculture  and  settled 
home  life  had  trained  peasants  to  do  many 
things  which  they  disliked  to  do,  to  observe 
taboo  and  to  obey  ancient  custom,  to  march  in 
rank  and  file,  and  even  in  lock-step.  It  was  a 
hard  school  in  which  savage  man  had  been  tamed, 
home-broken,  and  socialized,  and  he  had  learned 
its  lessons  thoroughly.     It  was  high  time  that 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  259 

men  should  be  promoted  to  a  higher  grade  of 
education  the  aim  of  whose  training  should  be 
the  development  of  free  and  vigorous  personality. 
The  crust  or  cake  of  custom  must  yield  or  be 
broken  and  allow  the  individual  to  enter  upon 
the  possession  of  his  rights. 

It  was  a  critical  and  revolutionary  change. 
It  had  been  rendered  easier  by  the  accumulation 
of  wealth,  and  of  a  certain  amount  of  personal 
property  in  cattle  and  other  goods.  In  centres 
of  trade  the  individual  was  thrown  more  and 
more  on  his  own  resources  and  initiative.  With 
exchange  of  goods  came  exchange  of  knowledge, 
ideas,  and  methods  undermining  the  ancient 
customs  and  traditions.  Movements  or  migra- 
tions of  peoples  or  smaller  bands  called  for  lead- 
ership by  the  most  capable.  And  those  became 
more  and  more  numerous  about  the  close  of  the 
Neolithic  period.  Neolithic  culture  had  been 
largely  the  product  of  peace  and  isolation;  it 
was  inadequate  to  the  new  conditions.  Matri- 
archy and  the  cult  of  the  goddess  were  unsuited 
to  times  of  struggle  and  migration;  with  the  rise 
of  the  chieftain  comes  the  worship  of  the  war-god. 

Where  did  this  change  or  revolution  and  the 
rise  of  this  new  language  and  culture  and  re- 
markable people  take  place?  All  agree  that 
the  cradle  or  original  homeland  must  have  been 


260  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

somewhere  on  our  third  route  of  migration,  the 
great  zone  of  steppe  and  parkland  stretching 
from  western  Turkestan  westward  along  the 
Caspian  and  Black  Seas  into  the  valley  of  the 
Danube,  and  from  the  Hungarian  extension  of 
the  Asiatic  steppe  northward  to  the  great  plain 
of  North  Germany  and  to  Scandinavia.  In  our 
study  of  racial  migrations  we  found  that  the 
great  Mongoloid  branch  went  eastward  from  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Iranian  plateau,  while  suc- 
cessive waves  of  migration  turned  westward  into 
Europe,  both  following  a  zone  of  steppe  and 
parkland  enjoying  unusually  favorable  climatic 
conditions  in  early  Postglacial  times. 

The  discovery  of  Sanskrit  and  the  belief  that 
it  represented  the  parent  of  the  Indo-European 
languages  led  students  to  place  the  original 
centre  of  their  dispersal  far  toward  the  eastern 
end  of  this  zone.  When  it  became  evident  that 
this  view  of  Sanskrit  was  untenable,  they  began 
to  locate  the  centre  in  Europe.  Finally  some 
or  many  students  have  sought  it  in  the  extreme 
west  and  north  in  Germany  or  also  in  Scandi- 
navia. When  careful  and  thorough  scholars 
have  arrived  at  so  many  and  so  different  con- 
clusions, we  may  well  be  cautious  and  remember 
that  new  discoveries  may  necessitate  a  change 
in  our  own  views. 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  261 

The  chief  argument  in  favor  of  the  North 
German  homeland  is  anthropological.  The  earli- 
est Indo-Europeans  both  in  Europe  and  Asia 
were  apparently  blonds,  with  light  hair  and  eyes; 
and  such  people  have  lived  along  the  shore  of 
the  Baltic  since  early  Neolithic  times. 

The  claim  that  the  ancient  Celts  and  Achseans 
were  physically  more  like  Germans  and  Scandi- 
navians than  any  other  European  people  is  cer- 
tainly not  without  foundation.  It  has  been 
urged  that  the  Indo-Europeans  were  acquainted 
with  the  sea  and  with  the  eel,  which  is  said  to 
be  unknown  in  the  tributaries  of  the  Black  and 
Caspian  Seas,  as  also  their  acquaintance  with 
the  beech.  Other  arguments  can  be  found  in 
special  articles.  We  have  seen  that  arguments 
based  on  the  meaning  of  words  like  beech,  eel, 
and  sea,  rest  on  a  very  insecure  foundation. 
The  Finns  are  almost  as  blond  as  the  Germans, 
and  Kossina1  places  them  with  the  Germans  as 

1 1  have  selected  for  examination  Professor  Kossina's  article,  and  that 
not  his  latest,  because  it  seems  to  furnish  the  strongest  and  clearest 
brief  statement  of  the  theory  of  the  Germanic  origin  of  the  Indo-Euro- 
peans. Hirt's  work  and  his  references  should  also  be  consulted.  It  is 
to  be  regretted  that  the  judgment  and  work  of  some  of  the  North  Ger- 
man prehistorians  on  this  question  are  tinged  by  national  prejudice. 
We  must  make  allowance  for  their  omissions  and  remember  that  we 
have  our  own  pet  prejudices. 

The  dogma  of  the  superiority  of  the  dolichocephalic  blond  has  been 
made  a  cult  by  Mr.  J.  H.  Chamberlin  and  other  far  less  brilliant  writers. 
It  has  received  little  support  in  Scandinavia.  The  works  of  this  school 
should  not  be  taken  too  seriously. 


262  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

ancestors  of  the  Indo-Europeans.  There  are  in 
Europe  also  blond  brachycephals,  generally  ac- 
knowledged to  have  been  of  western  Asiatic 
origin.  The  arguments  for  a  Germanic  origin 
are  attractive,  but  hardly  convincing,  and  any- 
thing but  conclusive. 

The  objections  to  this  view  are  weighty.  One 
marked  feature  of  Indo-European  culture  was 
the  use  of  the  horse,  which  held  the  highest  rank 
among  their  domestic  animals.  But  the  domes- 
tic horse  seems  to  have  been  introduced  into 
Europe  from  the  East.  The  few  traces  of  its 
presence  in  northern  Europe  during  Neolithic 
times  are  usually  explained  as  remains  of  wild 
animals  killed  in  the  hunt.  If  they  played  so 
large  a  part  in  Indo-European  culture,  it  is 
strange  that  they  have  left  so  few  remains. 

Kossina,  in  one  of  his  studies,  places  the  cradle 
of  Indo-European  culture  in  "Scandinavia,  Den- 
mark, and  northwest  Germany,  wherever  mega- 
lithic  monuments  with  their  characteristic  pot- 
tery occur."  Wherever  such  monuments  occur 
we  find  incineration  coming  in  late  in  Neolithic 
time,  or  more  exactly  with  the  Bronze  period, 
except  in  Brittany  and  England,  of  which  later. 
But  incineration  seems  to  accompany  the  prog- 
ress of  the  European  branch,  and  must  have 
come  into  use  among  these  peoples  well  back  in 
their  history  to  explain  its  wide  occurrence. 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  263 

The  word  town,  in  the  original  language,  seems 
to  signify  a  settlement  surrounded  by  a  hedge 
or  wall,  or  some  sort  of  defense.  But  fortified 
towns  are  hardly  known  in  North  Germany  at 
this  time.  All  these  cultural  features  seem  to 
appear  somewhat  or  considerably  too  late  in 
North  Germany  to  suit  Kossina's  theory. 

A  second  feature  of  Indo-European  culture  is 
the  rise  of  the  chieftain.  But  the  Germans  seem 
to  have  borrowed  the  name  for  king  and  other 
expressions  for  military  organizations,  as  well 
as  many  culture-words,  from  the  Celts.  This 
fact  has  led  some  good  authorities  to  declare 
that  the  Germans  received  their  Indo-European 
language  from  the  Celts. 

The  homeland  of  the  Indo-Europeans  must 
have  supported  a  large  population  to  send  out 
all  the  tribes  which  went  out  from  it.  Only 
such  a  region  can  satisfy  our  requirements,  and 
such  was  Germany,  an  Officina  gentium,  some 
2,000  years  later.  But  we  notice  that  the  mi- 
grations of  peoples  have  always  set  westward  into 
Europe,  not  in  the  reverse  direction.  Similarly 
the  new  discovery  or  idea  has  come  westward 
or  northward  from  western  Asia  or  from  the 
Mediterranean  region.  The  north  has  almost 
never  been  a  centre  of  origination  of  new  ideas 
and  movements.  It  has  borrowed  from  the 
richer  south.     We  would  not  expect  that  the 


264  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

Indo-European  movement  would  form  an  ex- 
ception to  this  rule.  Moreover,  the  peoples  of 
the  banded  pottery  who  had  filled  southeastern 
Europe,  coming  in,  as  is  generally  acknowledged, 
from  the  East,  had  brought  with  them  a  good 
knowledge  of  agriculture  which  could  support 
a  large  population. 

Now  Kossina  finds  evidence  of  the  spread  of 
the  corded  pottery  southward  at  the  close  of  the 
Neolithic  period,  and  infers  that  it  was  carried 
by  a  migration  from  the  north.  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  his  conclusion  is  correct,  though 
it  may  be  doubtful  whether  the  invasion  went 
so  far  into  the  province  of  the  banded  pottery 
as  he  thinks.  He  sees  in  this  the  first  stage  of  the 
Indo-European  movement  which  was  to  sweep 
eastward  as  far  as  India.  The  people  of  the 
banded  pottery  apparently  retreated  eastward 
before  this  movement,  and  thus  tended  still 
further  to  increase  the  density  and  power  of 
resistance  in  these  regions.  Furthermore,  had 
this  southeastward  movement  continued,  it 
would  have  met  the  first  of  a  series  of  waves 
of  invasion  which  would  surely  have  turned  it 
backward. 

We  have  seen  that  all  through  the  Neolithic 
period  brachycephals  of  the  Furfooz  or  Grenelle 
race  have  been  spreading  from  Belgium  and  the 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  265 

rough  eastern  part  of  France.  At  the  end  of 
the  Neolithic  period  they  are  being  crowded  by 
the  long-heads.  During  the  Bronze  Age  the 
cephalic  index  rises  all  over  middle  and  western 
Europe.  At  its  very  beginning  we  find  a  new 
people  in  England  —  tall,  rugged,  heavy -faced 
round-heads,  who  burned  their  dead  and  de- 
posited the  ashes  in  round  barrows.  They  seem 
to  have  come  from  the  Rhine  valley,  and  may 
well  have  introduced  incineration  into  Brittany, 
where  it  appears  early.  They  differ  markedly 
in  stature  and  features  from  the  Furfooz  people. 
They  have  quite  certainly  come  from  the  east, 
perhaps  from  the  region  of  the  Armenian  high- 
lands. They  have  crossed  Europe  in  sufficient 
numbers  and  compactness  to  retain  their  an- 
thropological characters  until  they  strike  Eng- 
land and  crowd  back  the  old  Iberian  or  Mediter- 
ranean peoples.  The  movement  looks  like  an 
invasion  in  mass,  not  like  a  quiet,  slow  infiltra- 
tion. They  were  the  forerunners  of  a  general 
advance  and  spread  of  the  broad-heads. 

Were  these  people  Celts  or  at  least  partially 
celticized?  To  express  an  opinion  on  a  Celtic 
question  is  to  accept  an  invitation  to  a  Donny- 
brook  fair.  Anthropologically  they  differ  mark- 
edly from  the  later  Celtic  invaders.  But  their 
custom  of  incineration  is  certainly  suggestive, 


266  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

and  it  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  they  spoke  a 
Celtic  dialect.  They  certainly  seem  to  prove 
that  the  westward  migration  from  the  region 
of  the  Black  Sea  or  from  farther  eastward  had 
not  ceased  or  been  turned  backward  at  this 
time.  The  spread  of  North  German  people 
southward  at  this  time  would  have  brought 
them  where  they  would  mingle  with  Celts  com- 
ing westward  and  receive  their  first  lesson  in 
Indo-European  language  and  culture,  if  it  came 
from  the  east. 

There  is  at  present  a  strong  tendency  to  seek 
the  original  Indo-European  homeland  neither 
in  the  extreme  east  or  extreme  west  or  north, 
but  somewhere  in  the  open  country  of  southern 
Russia  lying  to  the  north  of  the  Black  Sea 
or  farther  eastward  toward  the  Caspian.  Here 
they  locate  them  mainly  in  a  long  zone  of  park- 
land extending  along  the  southern  edge  of  the 
forest  zone  and  in  the  valleys  of  the  great  rivers. 
Here  at  a  much  later  date  Scythians  were  set- 
tled who  raised  large  quantities  of  wheat,  while 
others  were  nomadic.  We  remember  that  Neo- 
lithic trade-routes  followed  mainly  rivers  and 
seashore.  The  islands  of  the  Mediterranean 
were  occupied  early  and  sea  commerce  found  a 
centre  in  Crete.  A  great  centre  of  trade  arose 
very   early  at  Troy    (Hissarlik),   on   the  high- 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  267 

way  between  the  iEgean  and  the  settlements 
along  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea  and  in  the 
valleys  of  the  rivers  descending  from  the  in- 
terior. 

Dechellette  has  called  attention  to  the  striking 
analogies  in  form  of  settlement,  in  primitive 
idols,  in  pottery  with  painting  and  spiral  orna- 
ment between  the  villages  of  the  Balkans,  Troy 
(Hissarlik)  and  of  the  Troad  and  Phrygia,  and  of 
the  pre-Mycensean  culture  of  Crete  and  Greece. 
"Between  Butmir  and  Hissarlik  these  discov- 
eries mark  the  routes  which  already  undoubt- 
edly connected  pre-Hellenic  peoples  and  pre- 
Celtic  tribes." 

Meyer  tells  us  that  the  banded  pottery  shows 
the  same  motives  in  ornament  in  Butmir  and 
Tordos  as  in  Troy  and  the  ^Egean,  and  spreads 
thence  northward  and  westward;  and  that 
painted  pottery  in  Europe  starts  at  the  end  of 
the  Neolithic  (2500-2000  B.  C.)  in  the  great 
plain  east  of  the  Carpathians  in  the  region  of 
the  Dniester  and  Dnieper,  a  region  of  high  cul- 
ture in  other  respects.  "Here  the  connection 
with  the  iEgean  world  is  evident  (augenfallig) ." 
This  people  was  agricultural.  They  burned 
their  dead,  and  Meyer  thinks  that  incineration 
spread  northward  and  westward  from  this  cen- 
tre.    They  show  no  use  of  metal.     Their  cul- 


268  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

ture  breaks  off  suddenly  at  the  end  of  the  Neo- 
lithic period. 

Here  is  a  region  which  stands  in  free  com- 
munication with  the  agricultural  population  of 
the  parkland  zone,  open  to  influences  from  the 
steppe,  accepting  the  higher  civilization  of 
Phrygia  and  the  iEgean.  It  is  a  people  of  ad- 
vanced agriculture,  hence  probably  of  rapidly 
increasing  population,  open  to  trade  and  com- 
merce. Here  wide  and  free  communications 
would  be  likely  to  prevent  the  formation  of  an 
unyielding  cake  or  crust  of  custom.  People 
meeting  from  all  lands  and  cultures  might  well 
make  and  use  a  language  capable  of  expressing 
a  great  variety  of  shades  of  thought  peculiar  to 
a  variety  of  peoples  and  cultures;  we  might 
safely  call  it  a  mixed  language  springing  from 
a  mixture  of  peoples.  Here,  as  in  the  iEgean 
region,  the  more  or  less  fortified  town  or  vil- 
lage would  be  a  necessity.  Here  the  horse  and 
wagon  would  be  early  introduced  from  the  east. 
Here  the  patriarchate,  so  characteristic  of  no- 
madic tribes,  would  be  early  imported  from  the 
steppe,  or  may  have  been  developed  independ- 
ently. 

There  is  a  universality  in  the  Indo-European 
religion,  a  sanity  and  proportion  in  their  whole 
mode  of  thought,  a  broad  sympathy,  a  willing- 


THE   INDO-EUROPEANS  269 

ness  to  accept  new  ideas  and  conditions  —  in 
general,  a  breadth  of  mind  which  could  hardly 
be  the  product  of  isolation  but  rather  of  men 
who  had  "seen  the  customs  of  many  men  and 
many  cities,"  and  could  look  with  tolerance 
and  charity  on  alien  cultures  and  fully  appre- 
ciate their  worth  and  advantages.  Our  Teu- 
tonic ancestors  carried  their  mental  and  cul- 
tural environment  with  them  wherever  they 
went.  They  were  apostles  of  purity  of  blood 
and  hence  of  isolation.  They  were  never  good 
mixers,  as  were  Celt  and  Achaean.  All  three 
migrated  and  conquered  far  and  wide,  and  both 
usually  disappeared  in  the  alien  population. 
But  the  Teuton  left  little  impression  on  the 
alien  culture,  while  Achaean  and  Celt  leavened 
the  whole  mass.  Here,  as  in  other  respects, 
Celt  and  Teuton  show  an  incompatibility  and 
oppositeness  which  strongly  suggest  difference 
of  origin. 

But  we  must  carefully  avoid  too  great  cer- 
tainty and  definiteness  of  assertion.  The  weight 
of  probability  seems  to  be  against  any  theory 
which  locates  the  first,  original  homeland  in  the 
far  east  or  in  the  far  northwest.  But  we  deal 
only  with  probabilities,  and  may  well  "carry 
our  theories  on  our  finger-tips."  If  the  cradle 
was  somewhere  in  southern  Russia  north  of  the 


270  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

Black  Sea,  or  somewhat  farther  east  or  west, 
its  second  homeland  just  before  the  great  dis- 
persal was  vastly  larger.  Myres  thinks  that  it 
extended  far  to  the  eastward  of  the  Volga, 
which  perhaps  was  the  boundary  between  the 
eastern  and  western  branches,  and  whose  upper 
waters  drained  a  very  early  home  of  the  Finns. 

The  Indo-Europeans  were  settled  in  a  goodly 
land  capable  with  their  improved  agriculture 
of  supporting  a  very  large  population.  Why 
did  they  migrate  in  all  directions?  Here, 
again,  we  are  left  much  in  the  dark.  But  Pum- 
pelly,  in  his  explorations  at  Anau,  found  the 
settlement  deserted  during  the  Bronze  period 
about  the  same  time  when  we  find  the  Indo- 
Europeans  leaving  the  homeland.  At  Anau 
there  are  signs  that  the  desertion  was  due  pri- 
marily to  aridity  or  to  disturbances  accompany- 
ing such  a  change.  It  seems  highly  probable 
that  climatic  changes  may  have  played  a  most 
important  part  in  this  movement,  as  they  seem 
to  have  done  in  the  later  historical  migrations 
from  this  region  or  from  farther  eastward. 

We  may  close  this  chapter  of  uncertainties 
with  one  deduction  which  seems  fairly  evident. 
If  the  Germans  were  the  first  and  original 
Indo-Europeans,  the  movement  developed  here 
directly  out  of  preceding  Neolithic  conditions. 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  271 

If,  as  seems  more  probable,  it  originated  farther 
to  the  southeast,  and  was  introduced  by  the 
Celts,  or  in  connection  with  the  amber  trade, 
it  made  little  marked  interruption  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Germans.  They  and  the 
Scandinavians  continued  to  take  from  the  south 
whatever  they  would,  but  their  development 
was  largely  independent.  A  complete  conquest 
of  Germany  and  Scandinavia  by  the  Celts  seems 
very  improbable. 

The  Teutonic  and  Scandinavian  peoples  were 
not  precocious,  and  appear  in  history  very  late. 
But  here  apart,  in  the  misty  northland,  a  people 
was  very  slowly  developing  who,  after  the  de- 
cadence and  fall  of  Rome,  could  come  forward 
and  slowly  and  wearily  rebuild  a  civilization 
better  than  that  which  had  fallen,  and  a  govern- 
ment of,  by,  and  for  the  people,  guaranteeing 
to  the  individual  the  right  of  free  action  and 
development,  the  grandest  feature  of  Indo- 
European  culture.  This,  rather  than  any  pre- 
cocity, is  the  glory  of  the  northern  peoples. 
Once  again  we  find  history  in  the  making  in  an 
inconspicuous  people  during  an  apparently  dor- 
mant period. 

He  that  believeth  will  not  despise  the  day  of 
small  things,  neither  will  he  make  haste.  If  the 
vision  tarries  long,  he  will  wait  for  it.     "It  shall 


272  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

come  and  shall  not  tarry."     It  will  probably 
come  by  the  way  which  he  least  suspects. 

There  seems  to  be  a  wide-spread  opinion  that 
the  rise  of  the  Indo-Europeans  was  the  first 
dawn  of  day  in  a  benighted  world.  Their  mi- 
grations were  a  missionary  movement  on  a 
grand  scale.  They  dispelled  darkness,  igno- 
rance, and  superstitions,  broke  the  crust  of  a 
stagnant  conservatism,  overthrew  outworn  cus- 
toms, brought  an  entirely  new  culture,  and  revo- 
lutionized life  and  the  world.  We  might  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  Indo-European  cul- 
ture and  life  were  a  product  of  Neolithic  experi- 
ence, that  it  was  the  blossoming  of  Neolithic 
growth,  that  it  represented  only  one  part  or 
phase  of  Neolithic  attainment.  "The  best  tra- 
ditions make  the  best  rebels."  x  The  question 
remains:  Was  Neolithic  thought  and  feeling  de- 
stroyed by  their  coming,  or  did  it  still  persist, 
like  a  river  flowing  underground,  and  is  most  of 
our  deepest  life  to-day  a  fairly  direct  continua- 
tion of  the  older  current  only  somewhat  modi- 
fied by  the  revolution  ? 

We  notice  first  of  all  the  commonness  or  com- 
munity of  Neolithic  feeling  and  life,  its  almost 
monotonous   uniformity,   over  Europe,   eastern 

•375:  14. 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  273 

Asia,  and  probably  even  far  wider  areas.  We 
may  easily  exaggerate  this.  The  cultures  of  the 
Mediterranean  basin,  of  Spain  and  France,  of 
the  Danube  valley,  of  northern  Germany  and 
Scandinavia,  not  to  mention  smaller,  more  iso- 
lated provinces,  showed  well-marked  differences. 
There  was  probably  more  diversity  in  the  peo- 
ple of  every  one  of  these  provinces,  especially 
at  centres  of  trade,  even  in  every  larger  village, 
than  our  hasty  study  would  lead  us  to  suspect. 
But  in  fundamental  characters  there  was  wide- 
spread and  marked  similarity ;  and  this,  like  the 
wide  range  of  dominant  genera  and  species  of 
animals,  is  a  sign  of  vitality  and  fitness. 

The  Neolithic  period  coincides  roughly  with 
the  latter  part  of  Wundt's  Totem  Age:  the 
Bronze  period  ushered  in  his  Age  of  Heroes.1 
During  the  first  period  the  individual  counted 
for  very  little,  everything  was  tribal.  In  the 
second  period  the  great  leaders  of  popular  mi- 
grations emerge,  young,  vigorous,  hot-blooded. 
With  the  appearance  of  these  "kings  of  men" 
comes  the  rise  of  nations.  Tribal  control  wanes, 
and  the  slow  development  of  individual,  per- 
sonal judgment  and  conscience,  self-control,  and 
responsibility  replaces  it  to  a  great  extent. 

We  read  in  the  history  of  Israel  that  the  long 

■  o. 


274  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

Egyptian  bondage  of  a  stiff-necked  nomad  peo- 
ple, being  broken  to  the  rudiments  of  order  and 
civilization,  was  followed  by  an  exodus  and  a 
period  of  judges  or  popular  leaders,  when  "there 
was  no  king  in  Israel,  but  every  man  did  that 
which  was  right  in  his  own  eyes."  It  was  a 
period  of  lawlessness  and  anarchy;  recovery  was 
slow  and  painful,  and  finally  only  partially  at- 
tained by  the  appointment  of  a  king.  A  sim- 
ilar education,  on  a  vastly  larger  scale  both  of 
area  and  time,  was  going  on  all  over  Europe. 

Prehistoric  man  was  guided  and  controlled 
by  feelings  usually  expressing  the  dictates  of  a 
long  experience  out  of  which  instincts  had  crys- 
tallized. His  feelings  were  his  instinctive  re- 
sponses to  new  emergencies.  He  could  not 
analyze  them,  reason  or  argue  about  them;  he 
was  spared  the  "malady  of  thought."  He  had 
little  or  no  logic  or  science;  his  philosophy,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  a  way  smoothed  by  the  feet 
of  his  ancestors.  He  was  a  man  of  taste  in  the 
literal  sense  of  the  word.  He  knew  what  he 
liked  and  what  he  disliked;  probably  he  could 
not  have  explained  the  reason  for  either  feeling. 
He  was  wise  in  following  these  instinctive  feel- 
ings and  tastes;  they  represented  the  accu- 
mulated and  assimilated  experience  of  millennia. 

Of  course  the  experience  had  been  that  of  in- 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  275 

dividuals.  Neolithic  man's  school  and  labora- 
tory of  education  was  mostly  the  family  and 
the  neighborhood.  Here  he  had  to  learn  to 
get  on  with  other  individuals,  to  live  and  let 
live,  to  practise  co-operation  and  mutual  aid. 
Here  he  learned  the  first  and  grandest  lessons  in 
morals;  that  he  would  be  done  by  as  he  did, 
and  hence  that  it  was  best  to  do  as  he  would 
be  done  by.  He  has  never  lost  or  forgotten  the 
lessons  learned  in  this  excellent  "dame's  school." 

Most  of  his  higher  education  —  and  hence  of 
his  feeling,  conscience,  religion,  and  life  —  was 
tribal.  Laws,  or  rather  customs,  were  pro- 
pounded by  the  elders  of  the  tribe  or  priests, 
an  exceedingly  conservative  court.  The  chief 
aim  was  not  rapidity  of  progress,  but  confirm- 
ing and  practising  that  which  long  experience 
had  proved  to  be  good.  Slowly  but  surely  the 
fund  of  wisdom  increased.  "It  is  the  three- 
per-cent  man  who  gets  all  the  money  in  the 
end." 

Responsibility  was  tribal.  The  man  who  tried 
experiments  or  "fooled"  with  the  forbidden 
thing  was  a  common  nuisance  summarily  and 
thoroughly  abated  by  the  tribe. 

Land  was  common  property,  though  the  indi- 
vidual had  probably  gained  some  rights  of  use. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  he  could  use  the  whole 


276  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

or  any  part  of  it  entirely  as  he  would.  Even 
at  a  much  later  date  his  use  was  largely  limited 
and  controlled  by  ancient  custom. 

The  ritual  which  still  made  up  most  of  his 
religion  was  also  tribal.1  Dance  and  song  were 
practised  by  the  whole  community.  His  creed, 
so  far  as  he  had  one,  was  a  belief  in  spiritual 
beings,  daemons,  of  great  power  and  marvellous 
efficiency.  Some  or  many  were  beneficent; 
more  were  probably  maleficent;  but  those  might 
be  appeased,  mollified,  bribed,  won  over,  or  con- 
trolled, if  rightly  approached  through  magical 
rites  or  ceremonies. 

These  daemons  seem  to  have  been  supposed 
to  be  almost  innumerable.  No  one  was  su- 
preme, but  some  were  more  important  than 
others.  Here  then  was  room  for  variety  of 
opinion,  of  ritual,  of  the  spirit  occupying  the 
most  important  place;  hence  also  of  change  and 
development.  The  gods  in  one  country  were 
those  of  the  hills;  in  another,  those  of  the  plains; 
in  a  third,  of  the  forest.  Fishing  and  agricul- 
tural tribes  had  different  daemons.  The  wander- 
ing trader,  passing  from  tribe  to  tribe,  in  his  own 
heart  respected  or  neglected  all  alike.  Every 
land  had  its  own  gods  or  goddesses.  When  a 
man  migrated   to  another  country  he  usually 

'293. 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  277 

left  his  old  gods  at  home.  If  he  was  adopted 
into  the  brotherhood  of  another  tribe,  he  changed 
his  religious  allegiance  also. 

A  religious  hierarchy  seems  to  have  grown 
up  during  the  Neolithic  period  headed  by  the 
goddess-mother  of  life.  Her  rise  seems  to  have 
accompanied  the  introduction  of  agriculture, 
which  must  have  brought  great  changes  in  re- 
ligious ritual  and  belief.  Daemons  who  had 
heretofore  held  a  high  place  in  the  fear  or  affec- 
tion of  hunting  tribes  gradually  lost  their  su- 
premacy or  were  neglected. 

The  dethronement  of  gods  or  daemons  was 
usually  not  sudden  or  revolutionary.  The  new 
mode  of  life  and  its  accompanying  cult  gained 
ground  slowly.  Probably  it  was  at  first  an  ex- 
tension or  modification  of  some  older  one.  The 
dethroned  divinity  long  retained  his  hold  on  the 
fears  or  affections  of  many  of  the  tribe.  Finally 
he  was  remembered  only  by  certain  old  wives 
in  remote  or  isolated  settlements.  With  the 
rest  of  the  people  he,  or  she,  was  fast  becoming 
an  imp,  kobold,  or  fairy  —  the  subject  of  fasci- 
nating stories,  still  tinged  with  mystery,  joy,  or 
fear,  but  not  to  be  taken  too  seriously. 

Here,  apparently,  is  one,  by  no  means  the 
only,  source  of  folk-lore  and  fairy-tale.  Folk- 
lore is  an  exceedingly  wide  field  and  our  path 


278  THE   NEW  STONE   AGE 

leads  through  only  a  little  corner  of  it.  It  was 
the  growth  of  millennia.  It  preserves  for  us 
remnants  of  ancient  beliefs  and  practices,  whose 
original  meaning  had  been  forgotten  long  before 
the  birth  of  the  story-teller.  Fossil  beliefs  of 
the  most  widely  separated  ages  may  be  found 
jumbled  together  in  the  same  story. 

It  was  always  intended  to  be  told  to  a  group 
of  sympathetic  listeners  or  to  the  whole  com- 
munity. It  is  genuine  literature,  but  when  re- 
duced to  writing  or  cold  print  it  chills  and  dies. 
The  story-teller  must  feel  at  once  the  sympathy 
or  coldness  of  his  listeners.  The  substance  may 
remain  unchanged,  but  the  shading  and  emphasis 
must  vary  with  the  feeling  and  temper  of  the 
audience.  Thus  in  a  very  true  sense  it  was 
moulded  by  the  people.  If  a  story  survived 
with  certain  forms  and  content,  it  was  because 
it  was  essentially  common  and  human,  appeal- 
ing to  that  which  is  not  individual  but  at  least 
tribal  or  racial. 

Says  Mr.  Chesterton:  "Our  modern  novels, 
which  deal  with  men  as  they  are,  are  chiefly 
produced  by  a  small  and  educated  section  of  the 
society.  But  this  other  literature  (the  kind  now 
called  folk-lore,  the  literature  of  the  people) 
deals  with  men  greater  than  they  are  —  with 
demigods  and  heroes  —  and  that  is  far  too  im- 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  279 

portant  a  matter  to  be  trusted  to  the  educated 
classes.  The  fashioning  of  these  portents  is  a 
popular  trade,  like  ploughing  or  bricklaying; 
the  men  who  made  bridges,  the  men  who  made 
ditches,  were  the  men  who  made  deities.  Men 
could  not  elect  their  kings,  but  they  could  elect 
their  gods.  So  we  find  ourselves  faced  with  a 
fundamental  contrast  between  what  is  called 
fiction  and  what  is  called  folk-lore.  The  one 
exhibits  an  abnormal  degree  of  dexterity,  oper- 
ating within  our  daily  limitations;  the  other 
exhibits  quite  normal  desires  extended  beyond 
those  limitations.  Fiction  means  the  common 
things  as  seen  by  the  uncommon  people.  Fairy- 
tales mean  the  uncommon  things  as  seen  by  the 
common  people. 

"As  our  world  advances  through  history 
toward  its  present  epoch,  its  becomes  more  spe- 
cialist, less  democratic,  and  folk-lore  turns  gradu- 
ally into  fiction.  But  it  is  only  slowly  that  the 
old  elfin  fire  fades  into  the  light  of  common  real- 
ism. For  ages  after  our  characters  have  dressed 
up  in  the  clothes  of  mortals  they  betray  the 
blood  of  the  gods."1 

The  charm  and  wisdom  of  folk-lore  and  fairy- 
tale are  mostly  due  to  the  commonness,  in  the 
best  sense,  of  their  subject,  thought,  and  feeling. 

l37b:  67;  377:  177;  cf.  378. 


280  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

They  suit  all  times  and  places,  and  are  immortal 
and  timeless  like  their  heroes.  When  we  at- 
tempt to  reclothe  them  in  modern  form  or  lan- 
guage to  suit  "private  interpretation"  their 
strength  is  departed  from  them. 

Neolithic  feeling,  belief,  ritual,  religion;  its 
music,  art,  and  literature;  its  customs,  institu 
tions,  morals,  ways,  and  life  —  all  these  sprang 
from  the  life  and  experience  of  the  tribe  or 
community.  They  were  essentially  growths  in 
and  from  the  mass  of  the  people,  usually  owing 
comparatively  little  to  the  genius  of  any  indi- 
vidual inventor  or  discoverer.  We  have  called 
them  Neolithic,  but  some  or  many  of  them  were 
old  far  back  in  Paleolithic  time.  Like  the  tree 
Ygdrasil  their  roots  lay  hold  on  the  founda- 
tions of  the  world. 

So  deeply  rooted  a  growth  or  culture  is  almost 
ineradicable,  though  it  has  a  marvellous  adapta- 
bility and  possibilities  of  growth  and  modifica- 
tion. It  could  never  have  been  destroyed  by 
its  own  Indo-European  children,  however  re- 
bellious. It  must  survive  somewhere  though 
probably  changed  for  the  better.  We  have 
found  reasons  to  doubt  whether  Roman  ca- 
pacity for  discipline  and  government,  Roman 
laws  and  institutions,  were  predominantly  of 
Indo-European    origin.     We    were    still    more 


THE   INDO-EUROPEANS  281 

doubtful  whether  the  glory  of  Teutonic  or 
Scandinavian  history  is  due  to  its  being  Indo- 
European,  or  whether  it  was  the  result  of  a 
continuous,  unbroken  development  from  Neo- 
lithic times.  If  ever  any  culture  seems  largely 
native  and  indigenous,  responsive  to  outside 
influences  but  always  retaining  its  independent 
self-determination  and  power  of  selection  and 
choice  as  to  what  and  how  far  it  will  assimilate, 
that  culture  is  to  be  found  in  northern  Germany 
and  Scandinavia. 

We  have  seen  the  fate  of  Olympian  religion 
and  Achaean  thought  in  Greece.  The  Achseans 
were  a  small  minority  completely  outnumbered 
by  an  exceedingly  conservative  native  popula- 
tion. They  were  absorbed  and  became  a  part 
of  the  Greek  people,  and  their  contribution 
must  not  be  underestimated.  We  have  noted 
the  marvellous  vitality  of  the  old  Neolithic 
thought,  its  re-emergence,  its  influence  on  Greek 
philosophy.  We  remember  that  the  great  seat 
of  progress  was  not  in  Dorian  Sparta  but  in 
"Pelasgic  Athens,"  almost  unknown  to  Homer. 

The  Celt  was,  if  anything,  a  better  "mixer" 
and  more  adaptable  than  even  the  Achaean. 
His  prejudices  and  zeal  in  regard  to  morals  and 
religion  seem  not  to  have  been  deep  or  strong. 
The  Celts  were  finally  absorbed,  affecting  the 


282  THE   NEW   STONE   AGE 

temper  of  the  people  far  more  than  their  daily 
life. 

Through  all  these  revolutions,  as  well  as  those 
which  were  to  follow,  family  and  neighborhood 
retained  their  compact  unity,  perhaps  with  all 
its  mutual  attractions  strengthened  by  the  pres- 
sure of  the  conquerors.  They  were  still  the  con- 
trolling influence  in  the  life  and  education  of 
the  individual,  as  they  probably  remain  to  this 
day.  The  power  of  these  smaller  communities 
may  have  waxed,  as  tribal  control  waned. 
What  they  had  lost  in  the  mutual  support  within 
the  tribe  they  made  good  by  leaning  more 
closely  on  their  neighbors. 

This  solidarity  makes  the  common  people 
very  stiff-necked,  in  an  excellent  sense  of  the 
word.  Like  the  Neolithic  folk  of  Scandinavia, 
they  select  and  accept  from  their  more  cultured 
neighbors  only  that  which  they  can  assimilate 
to  the  stores  of  experience  and  instincts  which 
they  already  possess.  The  fickleness,  of  which 
they  are  often  accused,  is  characteristic  of  a  very 
different  class  or  stratum  of  the  population, 
and  of  far  later  origin  and  development.  Their 
own  development  is  naturally  slow,  gradual,  and 
continuous. 

We  have  ventured  the  opinion  that  the  es- 
sentials of  Neolithic  culture  survived  the  con- 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  283 

quests  of  the  Indo-Europeans  in  a  but  slightly 
modified  form.  If  this  is  granted,  we  have 
every  reason  to  think  that  the  effects  of  all  suc- 
ceeding invasions  and  conquests,  changes  of 
dynasties  and  governments,  international  or 
national  policies,  internal  legislation  and  re- 
forms, have  been  even  more  temporary,  slight, 
and  superficial.  Modern  revolutions  have  been 
more  and  more  uprisings  of  the  people  asserting 
the  inalienable  rights  and  privileges  of  their 
dignity  as  men.  The  trend  of  popular  life  and 
feeling  has  resembled  the  flow  of  a  river  or  the 
incoming  of  the  tide.  It  turns  or  winds  as  it 
meets  obstacles  in  its  path,  but  keeps  in  the 
main  to  a  fairly  clear  course  and  direction. 
The  people  may  not  be  against  the  government, 
they  merely  go  their  way  regardless  of  it.  But 
we  must  not  trespass  on  the  field  of  the  his- 
torian. 

During  the  Neolithic  period  everybody,  ex- 
cept perhaps  certain  priests  and  elders,  belonged 
to  the  common  people.  But  accumulation  of 
wealth,  the  rise  of  leaders,  the  conquest  of  new 
lands  developed  a  distinct  aristocracy  of  birth, 
wealth,  prowess,  leadership,  and  genius.  The 
common  people  of  to-day,  whom,  as  Mr.  Lin- 
coln said,  "God  must  have  loved  or  he  never 
would  have  made  so  many  of  them,"  seem  to 


284  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

be  the  whole  population  minus  the  uncommon 
aristocracy.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  just  where  we 
ought  to  draw  the  line  between  mass  and  class. 

All  the  virtues,  brains,  and  possibilities  of 
progress  can  hardly  be  confined  to  this  upper 
stratum.  Can  we  define  or  describe  our  com- 
mon people  ?  They  are  a  very  mixed  multitude. 
There  is  probably  more  individual  variety  than 
among  the  conventional  refined  and  cultured, 
and  this  makes  them  more  original  and  inter- 
esting. Hence  any  composite  picture  is  usually 
a  blur;  a  definite  picture  of  any  group  or  part 
would  be  partial  and  one-sided,  very  possibly 
a  caricature  of  the  whole.  We  dare  not  try  to 
offer  one. 

Men  and  women  like  Mr.  Robert  Woods,  of 
Boston,  and  Miss  Jane  Addams,  of  Chicago, 
have  set  themselves  patiently,  persistently,  sym- 
pathetically, respectfully,  and  wisely  to  study 
and  help  these  people.  They  can  and  will  de- 
scribe them,  if  we  will  listen.  Their  faith  in 
the  people  seems  to  be  deep  and  strong. 

We  all  recognize  that  in  times  of  trial  and 
emergency,  when  great  testing  moral  issues  are 
at  stake,  the  people  are  practically  unanimous 
in  recognizing  and  supporting  the  cause  of  jus- 
tice and  right,  unless  befogged,  divided,  or  mis- 
led by  statesmen.     Their  taste  for  right  ends  is 


THE   INDO-EUROPEANS  285 

keen  and  reliable.  Their  feelings  ring  true,  and 
they  act  accordingly,  whatever  the  cost. 

They  are  not  inarticulate,  though  their  speech 
is  often  interjectory.  They  are  only  beginning 
to  produce  a  large  number  of  spokesmen.  Now 
and  then  their  demands  are  voiced  by  a  prophet, 
asserting  that  what  Jehovah  demands  is  "to  do 
justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with 
thy  God";  or  the  prophecy  is  sung  by  a  poet, 
like  Burns.  They  may  sometimes  or  often  be 
misled;  but  if  their  heart  and  feeling  is  not 
healthy  we  may  well  despair  of  the  republic. 

But  the  true  prophet  is  very  rarely  a  states- 
man. His  feeling  and  taste  for  ends  is  marvel- 
lously good.  Here  his  word,  like  the  feeling  of 
the  people  from  whom  he  sprang,  is  almost  in- 
fallible. But  the  choice  of  means  and  policy, 
the  selection  of  the  next  step  toward  the  attain- 
ment of  the  end,  is  the  real  business  of  the 
statesman. 

The  elite  of  wealth,  learning,  and  culture 
to-day  have  generally  given  up  the  search  for 
ends  in  life.  The  old  question:  "What  is  man's 
chief  end?"  sounds  archaic.  We  are  doubtful 
as  to  the  existence  or  desirability  of  such  a 
thing.  We  are,  in  the  language  of  the  broker, 
very  "long"  on  means,  but  terribly  "short" 
on  ends,  for  which  there  is  no  market.     Some 


286  THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

day  we  shall  again  find  a  place  for  end  and  pur- 
pose in  our  philosophy  and  science,  as  in  the 
systems  of  Paul,  Plato,  and  especially  of  Aris- 
totle, with  his  "passion  for  the  obvious,"  but  at 
present  these  thinkers  are  back  numbers.  Yet 
we  must  have  ends  of  life  beyond  mere  survival, 
comfort,  or  luxury,  and  getting  a  living.  Some 
scale  of  values,  not  solely  and  purely  mercantile, 
would  also  be  useful. 

If  the  aristocracy  of  wealth,  learning,  and  cul- 
ture can  provide  us  no  adequate  system  of  ends 
and  values  in  life,  would  it  not  be  well  for  us 
to  borrow  temporarily  a  few  from  the  people? 
Might  we  not  to  good  advantage  even  go  into 
partnership  with  them,  cordially  accepting  their 
ends,  and  loyally  and  honestly  attempting  to 
find  the  means  of  attaining  them?  The  result 
might  be  a  solidarity  of  thought,  feeling,  action, 
and  final  attainment  superior  even  to  those  of 
our  Neolithic  ancestors. 

You  may  possibly  say:  "We  in  America  are 
already  living  under  a  democratic  form  of  gov- 
ernment — '  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people."  Is  this  the  statement  of  an 
accomplished  fact  or  the  definition  of  a  dim,  far- 
off  event  toward  which  we  hope  we  are  moving  ? 

How  far  did  the  framers  of  our  Constitution 
desire  or  intend  that  the  will  of  the  people  should 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS  287 

govern?  Was  the  method  of  choosing  and 
electing  the  President  of  the  United  States,  as 
originally  devised,  intended  to  make  that  elec- 
tion popular  or  not?  We  have  changed  that. 
Did  they  intend  that  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  should  be  a  means  of  carrying  out  the 
will  of  the  people,  or  rather  that  it  should  defer 
or  check  its  becoming  the  law  of  the  land? 
Does  our  governmental  action  to-day  represent 
the  will  of  the  people?  Is  it  truly  represen- 
tative ? 

Perhaps  our  ancestors  were  wise  in  their 
caution.  Perhaps  a  change  has  become  ad- 
visable. We  are  asking  how  far  government 
changes  or  modifies  the  people;  how  far  gov- 
ernmental action,  change  of  President  or  con- 
trolling party,  their  legislation  and  policies, 
affect  the  deeper  currents  of  character  and  life. 
The  people  seem  to  me  to  be  still  continuing  to 
go  their  own  way  and  to  follow  quietly  but 
firmly  their  own  line  of  development,  largely  re- 
gardless of  the  votes  of  national  Congress  or 
State  legislature,  perhaps  sometimes  with  a  slight 
sigh  of  relief  at  their  adjournment.  It  may  be 
best  that  it  is  so.  The  independence  and  con- 
tinuity of  popular  development  is  still  main- 
tained to-day  as  throughout  prehistoric  times. 

How  far  do  our  vast  accumulations  of  learn- 


288  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

ing  and  discovery,  our  deep  or  superficial  sys- 
tems of  philosophy,  our  splendid  or  decadent 
fin  de  siecle  art  and  literature  reach  and  affect 
these  people?  Their  chief  characteristic  is  an 
attempt  at  distinction,  an  artificial  uncommon- 
ness,  a  self-consciousness  entirely  foreign  to  the 
thinker  of  the  common  mind. 

The  institution  which  has  the  widest  and 
deepest  influence  on  their  feeling,  thought,  and 
life  is  the  church.  They  generally  love  it,  for 
they  are  ''incurably  religious."  It  is  conserva- 
tive in  the  best  sense  of  the  word.  It  repre- 
sents, of  course  imperfectly,  the  feelings,  aspira- 
tions, and  hopes  of  all  men  everywhere  in  all 
ages  —  in  one  word,  of  humanity.  It  stands  for 
the  worth,  dignity,  and  brotherhood  of  man, 
and  the  fatherhood  of  God.  It  is  almost  alone 
to-day  in  recognizing  that  there  are  ends  in 
life.  It  offers  a  way  of  progress  and  a  reason- 
able ground  of  hope  in  a  somewhat  weary  age 
inclined  to  indulge  in  criticism,  fault-finding,  and 
pessimism.  The  fact  that  it  is  generally  roundly 
abused  for  its  defects,  mistakes,  and  sins  of 
omission,  for  its  inability  to  accomplish  the  im- 
possible, is  a  sign  of  the  great  hope  and  con- 
fidence which  we  have  rightly  reposed  in  it. 

The  discordant  chorus  of  mutually  destruc- 
tive criticisms  arising  from  the  cultured  and  in- 


THE   INDO-EUROPEANS  289 

tellectual  classes  seems  to  show  that  it  is  fol- 
lowing fairly  well  a  straight,  right,  and  wise 
course,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  is  said  to  have  sug- 
gested concerning  his  own  experience,  plans, 
and  leadership  in  a  similar  situation.  "Wisdom 
is  justified  of  her  children,"  but  the  families  of 
the  elect  are  small.  That  the  church  does  not 
conform  to  all  the  theories  —  not  to  say  va- 
garies and  fads  —  of  to-day  is  no  discredit. 
Most  of  them  will  be  very  unfashionable  to- 
morrow. "The  fashion  of  this  age  passeth 
away." 

The  existence  of  our  nation  evidently  depends 
far  more  upon  the  fundamental  and  essential, 
nay  obvious,  old  and  common  human  virtues  of 
very  common  people  than  upon  our  art  and 
learning,  the  shrewdness  of  our  politicians  and 
profiteers,  the  amount  of  our  wealth  and  ex- 
ports, our  inventions  or  luxuries,  the  winning 
of  an  election,  or  the  defeat  of  any  party.  In 
one  word,  which  we  have  already  repeated  ad 
nauseam,  our  chief  business  to-day  is  to  con- 
tinue the  line  of  development  clearly  marked 
out  by  our  benighted  ancestors  of  prehistoric 
days  —  to  exercise,  develop,  and  strengthen  the 
best  instincts  and  feelings  crystallized  out  of 
millennia  of  experience;  to  see  to  it  that  they 
are  expressed  in  the  law  and  practices  of  the 


290  THE   NEW  STONE  AGE 

land  and  commonwealth ;  and  that  they  are  not 
smothered  under  a  mass  of  inventions  of  yes- 
terday and  of  conventions  of  to-day.  The  fact 
that  all  this  is  entirely  obvious  should  not  con- 
ceal its  importance. 

The  old  message  comes  to  us:  "If  thou  alto- 
gether holdest  thy  peace  at  this  time,  then  shall 
there  enlargement  and  deliverance  arise  from 
another  place;  but  thou  and  thy  father's  house 
shall  be  destroyed;  and  who  knoweth  whether 
thou  art  come  to  the  kingdom  for  such  a  time 
as  this?" 

In  the  northern  ocean  we  see  icebergs  moving 
slowly  southward.  They  are  not  driven  by  the 
winds  which  to-day  are  blowing  against  their 
broad  fronts.  The  most  conspicuous  feature 
of  our  field  of  vision  is  the  white  foam  capping 
the  waves.  To-morrow  it  will  be  blown  away, 
evaporate,  and  disappear  in  the  shifting  winds 
which  have  tossed  it  into  view.  The  berg  is 
carried  by  the  great  polar  current,  silent,  in- 
conspicuous, irresistible,  unchanging  in  its 
course,  guided  by  still  deeper  and  more  ancient 
and  permanent  cosmic  forces. 

We  know  something  about  oceanic  currents. 
Of  the  current  of  the  evolution  of  life  we  know 
almost  nothing;  but  hope  that  our  theories  are 
no  more  inadequate  than  the  feelings  of  our 


THE   INDO-EUROPEANS  291 

Neolithic  ancestors.  Certainly  the  current  has 
not  yet  been  charted.  We  catch  glimpses  of 
the  direction  of  its  sweep.  Over  what  stormy 
and  dangerous  seas  and  to  what  undiscovered 
island  or  continent  it  is  carrying  us  we  do  not 
know.  It  seems  to  set  toward  fairer  climes 
beyond  our  vision.  We  set  sail  millions  of 
years  ago;  we  shall  not  arrive  to-morrow. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A  FEW  SUGGESTIONS 

The  first  series  of  books  referred  to  in  the  following  lists 
(A-O)  are  general,  and  every  one  covers  a  large  field.  The 
works  of  Dechelette  and  Hoernes  (A  and  B)  contain  a  very  rich 
bibliography  down  to  1907  or  1908.  They  should  be  carefully 
studied  first  of  all;  afterward  the  remainder  of  the  list.  I  have 
omitted  from  the  following  list  many  excellent  articles  to  which 
they  refer.  This  list  will  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  ordinary 
reader. 

The  second  list  (1-378)  contains  references  to  articles  or 
books  on  special  subjects  which  I  have  been  obliged  to  treat 
very  briefly  in  this  small  book.  These  will  introduce  the  reader 
to  other  writers  on  the  same  subject.  He  is  urged  to  make  his 
own  bibliography,  and  will  find  that  he  has  started  on  an  end- 
less chain  of  most  fascinating  research,  for  which  I  hope  he 
may  form  an  insatiable  appetite. 

The  following  list  of  abbreviations  and  corresponding  com- 
plete titles  may  save  the  reader  some  inconvenience.  In  this 
connection  he  may  well  consult  the  Introduction  to  Dechelette's 
Manuel  (A)  I,  pp.  xv-xix. 

Amer.  Nat American  Naturalist. 

Amer.  Anth American  Anthropologist. 

Sci.  Mo Science  Monthly.    (Continuation  of 

Popular  Science  Monthly.) 

A.f.  A.  (Arch.f.  Anth.).  .Archivfur  Anthropologic . 

Zts.  f.  Eth Zeitschrift  fiir  Ethnologic 

L' 'Anth IS  Anthropologic 

R.  E.  A Revue  d'ecole  a" Anthropologic,  Paris. 

Rev.  Arch Revue  Archeologique. 

Korr.-bl.  d.  d.  Ges Korrespondenz-blatt    dcr   deutschen 

Gesellschaft  fiir  Anthropologic 

Cong.  Int Congres  international  d' Anthropo- 
logic et  d' ArchSologic 
293 


294  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

GENERAL 

A.  Dechelette,  J.     Manuel  d' ArchSologie  PrShistorique.    Paris, 

1908.     3  vols.     Vol.  I.     Archiologie  Prehistoriqw. 

B.  Hoernes,  M.     Natur-  und  Urgeschichte  des  Menschen.    Vi- 

enna, 1909.     2  vols. 

C.    Urgeschichte  des  Menschen,  Vienna,  1892. 

D.  Obermaier,  H.     Der  Mensch  aller  Zeiten.     Berlin,  1911- 

12.     Vol.  I.     Der  Mensch  der  Vorzeit. 

E.  Forrer,  R.     Urgeschichte  des  Europders.     Stuttgart,  1908. 

F.     Reallexikon  der  prahistorischen,  klassichen  und  friih- 

christliclien  Alterthiimer.     Stuttgart,  1907-08. 

G.  Miiller,   S.     Nordische  Alterthumskunde   (trans.   Jiriczek). 

Strassburg,  1897.     Vol.  I.     Steinzeit-Bronzezeit. 
H.    Urgeschichte  Europas  (trans.  Jiriczek).     Strassburg, 

1905. 
I.     L' Europe    prehistorique     (trans.     Philipot).     Paris, 

1907. 
J.     Montelius,  O.     Kulturgeschichte  Schwedens.     Leipsic,  1906. 
K.    Les  Temps  prehistoriques  en  Suede  (trans.  Reinach). 

Paris,  1895. 
L.    Avebury,  Lord  (Sir  John  Lubbock).    Prehistoric   Times. 

New  York,  1913. 
M.    Elliot,  G.  F.  S.    Prehistoric  Man  and  His  Story.    London, 

1915. 
N.     Schwantes,  G.     Aus  Deutschland's  Urzeit.     Leipsic,  1913. 
O.    Wundt,  W.     Elements  of  Folk  Psychology  (trans.  Schaub, 

E.  L.).  London,  1915. 

CHAPTER  I— THE  COMING  OF  MAN 

1.  Lull,  R.  S.     Organic  Evolution.     New  York,  1917. 

2.  Wilder,  H.  H.     History  of  the  Human  Body.     New  York, 

1909. 

3.  Cope,   E.    D.     Primary   Factors   of  Evolution.     Chicago, 

1895,  p.  150. 

5.  Osborn,  H.  F.     Age  of  Mammals.     New  York,  1910. 

6.  Loomis,  F.  B.     "Adaptation  of  Primates,"  Amer.  Nat., 

XLV,  1911,  479. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  295 

7.  Gregory,  W.  K.     "Studies  in  the  Evolution  of  Primates," 

Bull.  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.,  XXV,  1916,  Art.  XIX,  239. 

8.  Barrell,  J.     "Probable  Relations  of  Climatic  Changes  to 

Origin  of  Tertiary  Ape-Man,"  Sci.  Mo.,  N.  S.,  IV, 
1917,  16. 

9.  Matthew,  W.  D.     "Climate  and  Evolution,"  Ann.  N.  Y. 

Acad.  Sci.,  XXIV,  1915,  170. 

10.  Pilgrim,  G.  E,     "New  Siwalik  Primates,"  Records  of  Geol. 

Survey  of  India,  XLIII,  1913,  Part  IV,  264. 

11.  Chamberlain,  T.  C,  and  Salisbury,  R.  D.     Geology.     New 

York,  1904,  Vol.  Ill,  534. 

12.  Lydekker,    L.    K.     Geographical    History    of    Mammals. 

Cambridge,  1896,  201,  265,  288,  334. 

13.  Pirsson,  L.  V.,  and  Schuchert,  C.     Text-Book  of  Geology. 

New  York,  1915,  Part  II,  925,  948,  964,  976. 

14.  Smith,  G.  E.     Presidential  Address,  Brit.  Assoc.  Adv.  Sci. 

Dundee,  1912,  575. 

15.  Heinemann,  T.  W.     Physical  Basis  of  Civilization.     Chi- 

cago, 1908. 

16.  Fiske,  J.     Destiny  of  Man.     Boston,  1884. 

17.  Drummond,  H.     Ascent  of  Man.     New  York,  1894. 

18.  Kropotkin,  P.  A.     Mutual  Aid  a  Factor  in  Evolution.    New 

York,  1903. 

19.  Jones,  F.  W.     Arboreal  Man.     New  York  and  London, 

1916. 

PITHECANTHROPUS 

See  A,  I,  273;  B,  I,  181;  D,  I,  370;  40,  73. 

24.  Du  Bois,  E.     Smithson.  Report,  1897-98,  445. 

25.  Berry,  E.   W.     "Environment  of  Ape-Man,"  Sci.   Mo., 

N.  S.,  Ill,  1906,  161. 

26.  Keith,  A.     Ancient  Types  of  Man.     New  York,  1911. 

PRIMITIVE   HUMAN   MIGRATIONS 

30.  Keane,  A.  H.     Ethnology.     Cambridge,  1901. 

31.  Deniker,  J.     Races  of  Man.     London,  1900. 

32.  Haddon,  A.  C.     The  Wanderings  of  Peoples.     Cambridge, 

1911. 

33.    Races  of  Man  and  Their  Distribution.     New  York, 

1910. 


29G  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

MAN'S   ARRIVAL  IN    EUROPE 

40.  Osborn,H.F.     Menof  the  Old  Stone  Age.     New  York,  1915. 

41.  Ranke,  J.     Der  Mensch.     Leipsic,  1900. 

42.  Geikie,  J.     Antiquity  of  Man  in  Europe.     Edinburgh,  1914. 

43.     The  Great  Ice  Age.     3d  ed.     London,  1894. 

44.  Reinhardt,  L.    Der  Mensch  zur  Eiszeit  in  Europa.    Munich, 

1906. 

45.  Geikie,  J.     "Tundras  and  Steppes  of  Prehistoric  Europe," 

Smithson.  Report,  1897-98,  321. 

46.  Nehring,  A.     Tundren  u.  Steppen  der  Jetzt-  und  Vor-zeit. 

Berlin,  1890. 

47.  Schoetensack,  O.     Der  Unterkiefer  des  "Homo  Heidelbergen- 

sis."     Leipsic,  1908. 

48.  MacCurdy,  G.  G.     "The  Eolith  Problem,"  Amer.  Anth., 

N.  S.,  VII,  1905,  425. 

49.  Sollas,  W.  J.     Ancient  Hunters.     2d  ed.     London,  1915. 

60.  Hoops,   J.     Waldbaume  U7id  Kulturpflanzen,  im  german. 

Alterthum.     Strassburg,  1905. 
Danish  Shell-heaps.     See  D,  465-476;  G,  I,  4;    L,  226. 

61.  Steenstrup,  J.     Arch.f.  Anth.,  XIX,  1891,  361. 

62.  Sarauw,  F.  C.     "  Maglemose,"  Prahist.  Zeits.,  Ill,  1911, 

52;  VI,  1914,  1. 

63.  Virchow,   R.   "Rinnekalns,"   Korresp.-blatt.   der  deutschen 

Ges.  f.  Anthrop.,  XXVIII,  1897,  147. 

64.  Ebert,  M.     "Die  baltischen  Provinzen,"  Prahist.  Zeits., 

V,  1913,  498;  Mugem,  C,  232. 

65.  Cartailhac,  E.     Ages  prehistoriques  de  VEspagne  et  du  Por- 

tugal, p.  48. 

66.  Munro,  R.     Palaeolithic  Man  and  Terramara  Settlements  in 

Europe.     New  York,  1912. 

67.  Morlot,  A.     Societe  Vandoise  des  Sci.  Nat.,  VI,  No.  46. 

"  Etudes  geologico-archeologiques."    (Shell-heaps  and 
Lake-dwellings.)     Lausanne,  1860. 

CHAPTER  III— LAND  HABITATIONS 

CAVE-DWELLINGS 

B,  31;   C,  258;    E,  120,  139. 

75.  Dawkins,  W.  B.     Cave  Hunting.     London,  1874. 

76.  Fraipont,  J.     Les  Caverncs  et  leurs  Habitants.     Paris,  1896. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  297 


HUTS   AND    VILLAGES 

B,  51,  65,  84. 

80.  Montelius,  O.     "Zur  altesten  Geschichte  des  Wohnhauses 

in  Europa,"  Areh.f.  Anth.,  XXIII,  1895,  451.     Cf.  H, 
25,  68;  J,  15. 

81.  Schliz,  A.     "Der  Bau  vorgeschichtlicher  Woknanlagen," 

Mitt.  d.  Anth.  Ges.  Wien,  1903,  301. 

82.  Castelfrauco,  P.     "Les  Fonds  des  Cabanes,"  Rev.  d'Anth., 

XVI,  1887,  182.     Cf.  A,  347,  350;  E,  139. 

83.  Schliz,  A.     Das  steinzeitliche  Dorf  Grosgartach.     Stuttgart, 

1901. 
Rev.  Virchow,  R.,  Areh.f.  Anth.,  XXVII,  1892,  435. 
Rev.  Reinach,  S.,  V Anth.,  XII,  1901,  704. 

84.  Possler,  W.     "Die   Abarten   des   Altsachsischen   Bauern- 

hauses,"  Arch.  f.  Anth.,  XXXVI,  1909,  157. 

85.  Mielke,    R.     "Entwickelungsgeschichte    der    sachsischen 

Hausform,"  Zts.f.  Eth.,  XXXV,  1903,  509. 

CHAPTER  IV— LAKE-DWELLINGS 

90.  Munro,  R.     Lake  Dwellings  of  Europe.     London,   1890. 

Full  Bibliography  until  1890. 
See  also  L,  180;  A,  363;   E,  158;  B,  98;  C,  234;  D,  515. 

91.  Keller,  F.     Lake  Dwellings  of  Switzerland.     2d  ed.     Lon- 

don, 1878. 

92.  Troyon,   F.     Habitations  lacustres  du  Lac  de  Neuchdtel. 

Paris,  1865. 

93.  Gross,  V.     Les  ProtohelvSites.     Paris,  1883. 

94.  Schuhmacher.     Arch.  f.  Anth.,  N.  F.,  VII,  1903,  254. 

95.  Heierlei,  J.     Ur -geschichte  der  Schweiz.     Zurich,  1901. 

96.  Schenk,  A.     La  Suisse  Prehistorique.     Lausanne,  1912. 

97.  Bolsche,   W.     Mensch  der   Pfahlbauzeit.     8th  ed.     Stutt- 

gart, 1911. 

98.  Heer,  O.     Die  Pflanzen  der  Pfahlbauten,  1886.     See  91,  I, 

518. 
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298  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CHAPTER  V— A  GLANCE  EASTWARD 

110.  Pumpelly,  R.     Explorations  in  Turkestan,  Carnegie  Inst. 

Pub.,  Washington,  No.  73, 1904,  2  vols.,  vol.  I,  p.  50, 
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111.  Rev.  by  Schmidt,  H.     Prahist.  Zeits.,  I,  1909-10,  413. 

112.  Capitan,   L.     "L'Histoire  d'Elam,"   Rev.   d'Sc.   d'Anth.f 

XII,  1902,  187. 

113.  Diissaud,  R.     "Anciennes  Civilisations  orientales,"  Rev. 

d'ec.  d'Anth.,  XVII,  1907,  97. 

114.  Schrader,  Fr.     "Questions  d'Orient,"  Rev.  d'ec.  d'Anth., 

XVTII,  1908,  267;  XX,  1910,  73. 

115.  Delitzsch,  F.     Rep.  Smithson.  Inst,  1900,  535. 

116.  Morgan,  J.  de.     Premieres  Civilisations.     Paris,  1909. 

117.  MSmoires  de  la  Delegation  en  Perse,  1, 1900, 181-190  (Susa). 

118.  MSmoires  de  la  Delegation  en  Perse  I  (Tepeh  Moussian), 

VIII,  1906.     Cf.  B,  II,  168. 

119.  Morgan,   J.    de.     "Les   Ages   de   la   Pierre   dans   l'Asie 

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121.  King,  L.  W.     History  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  Part  I. 

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122.  Sayce,    A.    H.     Archaeology    of   Cuneiform    Inscriptions. 

London,  1907,  67-100. 

123.  Hall,  H.  R.     "Discoveries  in  Crete,  and  Their  Relations 

to   Palestine   and   Egypt,"   Proc.   Soc.    Bib.   Arch., 
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124.  Myres,  J.  L.     Dawn  of  History.     New  York,  1911,  121, 

202. 

125.  Breasted,  J.  H.     Ancient  Times.     New  York,  1914,  100. 

ORIGIN  OF  AGRICULTURE  AND   CATTLE-RAISING 

See  B,  I,  535-591;  M,  chaps.  XII,  XIII. 

135.  Reinhardt,  L.   Die  ErdeunddieKultur.   Munich,  1912  (?). 

a.  Vol.      I,  Die  Erde  und  ihr  Wirthschaftsleben. 

b.  Vol.    II,  Kulturgeschichte  des  Menschen. 

c.  Vol.  HI,  Kulturgeschichte  der  Nutzthiere. 

d.  Vol.  rV,  Kulturgeschichte  der  Pflanzen. 

136.  La  Grande  Encycl.,  Art.  "Agriculture." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  299 

137.  Hehn,  V.     Kulturpflanzen  und  Hausthiere.     Berlin,  1911. 

138.  Mason,    O.    T.     Woman's   Share   in   Primitive    Culture. 

New  York,  1907,  146,  chap.  II. 

139.  Buschan,  G.     "Heimat  und  Alter  der  europaischen  Kul- 

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140.  Roth.     "Origin  of  Agriculture,"  J  own.  Anth.  Inst.,  XVI, 

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141.  Zaborowski,  M.  S.     "Le  Ble  en  Asie  et  en  Europe,"  Rev. 

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142.  Much,  M.     "Vorgeschichtliche  Nabr- und  Nutz-Pflanzen 

in  Europa,"  Mitt.  Anth.  Ges.  Wien,  XXXVEII,  1908, 
195  ff.     Favors  European  origins. 

CHAPTER  VI— MEGALITHS 
See  A,  I,  chap.  Ill;  B,  n,  440;  D,  500;  G,  chap.  V;  J,  43; 
L,  chap.  V. 

150.  Peet,  T.  E.     Rude  Stone  Monuments  and  Their  Builders. 

New  York,  1912. 

151.  Windle,  B.  C.  A.     Remains  of  Prehistoric  Age  in  England. 

London, 1904. 

152.  Krause,  E.,  und  Schbtensack,  0.     "Die  megalithischen 

Graber  Deutschlands,"  Zts.  f.  Eth.,  XXV,  1893,  105. 

153.  Lienau,  M.  M.     "  Megalithgraber  u.  sonstige  Grabformen 

der  Llineburger  Gegend,"  Mannu-sbib.,  XIII,  1914. 

154.  Montelius,  O.     Orient  und  Europa.     Stockholm,  1899. 

155.  Wilke,  G.     "Sudwesteurop.  Megalithkultur,"  Mannusbib. 

VII. 

156.  Hermet  (Abbe),  "Statues-Menhirs,"  V  Anth.,  XH,  1901, 

595. 

157.  Cartailhac,  E.     La  France  Prehistorique.     Paris,  1889. 

DISPOSAL   OF   DEAD 

164.  Helm,    K.     Altgermanische    Religions geschichte.    Heidel- 

berg, 1913,  132,  Bib. 

165.  Schliz,    A.     "  Steinzeitliche    Bestattungsformen    in   Siid- 

westdeutschland,"  Korr.-bl.  d.  d.  Ges.,  XXXII,  1901, 
60. 

166.  Andree,  R.    " Hockerbestattung  und  Ethnologie,"  .4./.  A.> 

XXXIV,  1907,  282,  303. 


300  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

167.  Schotensack,    O.     "Bedeutung    der    Hockerbestattung," 

Zts.f.  Eth.,  XXXIII,  1901,  522. 

168.  Gotze,  A.     "Ueber  Hockergraber,"  Korr.-bl.  d.  d.  Ges., 

1899,  321. 

169.  Olshausen,  O.     " Leichenverbrennung,"  Zts.f.  Eth.,  1892, 

129. 

170.  Seger,  H.     "  Entstehung  der  Leichenverbrennung,"  Korr.- 

bl.  d.  d.  Ges.,  XLI,  1910,  115. 


CHAPTER  VII— NEOLITHIC  INDUSTRIES 

179.  Veblen,  T.     The  Instinct  of  Workmanship.     New  York, 

1914. 
Clothing.     G,  I,  268;  J,  19;  90,  F. 
Ornaments.      B,  n,  328;  A,  n,  570. 
Implements.     A,  513;   B,  II,  168;  D,  472,  478;    E,  178; 

F,  Art.  "Axt ";  G,  22;  46,  133;  J,  24. 
Salt.      B,  II,  23,  89;    F,  Art.  "Salz";  N,  114. 
Gold.    A,  627;  B,  II,  207;  C,  320. 
Copper.    A,  II;  B,  II,  546;  D,  494,  499,  545;  E,  278. 

180.  Much,  M.    Die  Kupferzeit  in  Europa.    2  Auf.    Jena,  1893. 

181.  Hampel,  J.     "Neue  Studien  liber  die  Kupferzeit,"  Zts. 

f.  Eth.,  XXVIII,  1896,  57. 

182.  Montelius,  O.     "Die  Chronologie  der  altesten  Bronze- 

zeit,"  Arch.f.  Anth.,  XXV,  443;  XXVI. 
Ships,  rock-carvings  of.     J,  126;  C,  389;  G,  466;  E,  347. 
Nephrite  and  Jadeite.     A,  I,  519,  573;  B,  II,  504;  D,  510; 

95,  116;  96,  Index. 

185.  Mehlis,  C.     "Exotische  Steinbeile  der  neol.  Zeit,"  Arch. 

f.  Anth.,  XXVII,  1902,  519. 

186.  Peet,  T.  E.     Stone  and  Bronze  Ages  of  Italy.    Oxford, 

1909. 
Amber.     A,  623 ;  B,  I,  513 ;  II,  345,  353 ;  D,  556 ;  G,  I,  52. 
Trade.    B,  II,  466-529;  A,  I,  619;  228;  154. 
Pottery.     A,  547;  D,  481;   116,  195-207;  F,  Art.  "Ge- 

fasse,"  95,  184. 
190.     Hoernes,  M.     "Die  neol.  Keramik  in  Oestreich,"  Zts.  f. 

Eth.,  1903,  438. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  301 

191.  Smith,    R.    A.     "Development    of    Neolithic    Pottery," 

Archaeologia,  LXII,  340. 

192.  Meyer,   E.     Gesckichte   des  Alterthums,  II,  824.     2d  ed. 

Stuttgart,  1909. 

193.  Schuchhardt,  C.     "Das  technische  Element  in  den  An- 

fangen  der  Kunst,"  Prahist.  Zeits.,  I,  37. 

194.  Verworn,  M.     Kulturkries  der  Bandkeramik.     II,  145. 

195.  Reche,  O.     "Zur  Anthropologic  der  jiingeren  Steinzeit  in 

Bohmen,"  Arch.  f.  Anth.,  XXXV,  1908,  220. 

196.  Seger,  H.   "  Steinzeit  in  Schlesien,"  Arck.f.  Anth.,  N.  F.  V., 

1906. 

197.  Gotze,  A.     "Neolithische  Kugelamphoren,"  Zts.  f.  Eth., 

XXXII,  154,  1900. 

198.     "Eintheilung  der  neol.  Periode  in  Mitteleuropa," 

Korr.-bl.  d.  d.  Ges.,  XXXI,  1900,  133. 

199.  Schuchhardt,   C.     "Neol.   Hauser  bei  Lissdorf,"  Zts.  f. 

Eth.,  XLIII,  1911,  998. 

200.  Wosinsky,  M.     Die  inkrustierte  Keramik.     Berlin,  1904. 

201.  Closmadeuc,  G.  de.     "La  Ceramique  dans  les  Dolmens 

de  Morbihan,"  Rev.  Arch.,  I,  257. 

202.  Schmidt,    H.     "  Vorgeschichte    Spaniens,"   Zts.  f.   Eth., 

XLV,  238,  1913. 

203.  Volkow,  Th.     "L'Industrie  premycenienne  des  Stations 

neolithiques  de  l'Ukraine,"  L 'Anth.,  XIII,  1902,  57. 

204.  Zaborowski,  M.  S.     "Industrie  Egeenne  sur  le  Dnieper  et 

le  Dniester,"  Bull.  Soc.  Anth.,  Paris,  1900,  481. 

CHAPTER  Vin— NEOLITHIC  CHRONOLOGY 

214.  Menzel,  H.     "Geologische  Entwickelungsgeschichte  der 

alteren   Postglacialzeit,"  Zts.  f.  Eth.,  XLVI,   1914, 
206-240. 

215.  Montelius,  O.     "Chronologie  der  jiingeren  Steinzeit  in 

Skandinavien,"  Korr.-bl.  d.  d.  Ges.,  XXII,  1891,  99- 
105. 

216.     "Chronologie   der  altesten  Bronzezeit,"  Arch.  f. 

Anth.,  XXVI,  1899,  905. 

217.     "Preclassical  Chronology  of  Greece  and  Italy," 

Journ.  Anth.  Inst.,  1897. 


302  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

218.     "Chronologie  prekistorique,"  Cong.  Int.  d'Anth.  et 

d'Arch.,  XII,  339.  Cf.  Muller,  S.  Ibid,  X.  Paris, 
228. 

219.  Scheitelig,  H.    "  Vorgeschichte  Norwegens,"  Mannus.,  Ill, 

1911,  29. 

220.  Kossina,  G.    "UrfinnenundUrgernianen,"  Mannus.,  1, 17. 

221.  Worsaae,  J.  J.  A.     "Arctic  Cultures,"  Cong.  Int.  d 'Anth. 

et  d'Arch.     Stockholm,  VII,  1874,  208. 
Also,  J,  63;  M,  317  and  Bib.,  323. 

222.  Types  of  Axe,  G,  I,  48;   B,  II,  184;  A,  I,  334;    F,  Art. 

"Aexte."     Cf.  also  "Zeitalter." 

223.  Montelius,  O.     "Les  differents  Types  des  Hackes,"  Cong. 

Int.  d'Anth.  et  d'Arch.     Stockkolm,  VII,  I,  238. 

226.  Sckmidt,   R.    R.     "Die    Grundlagen    fur    die   Diluviale 

Ckronologie  u.  Paliietknologie  Westeuropas,"  Zts.  f. 
Eth.,  XLIII,  1911,  945.  Cf.  Korr.-bl.  d.  d.  Ges., 
XLI,  1910. 

227.  Hoist.     "  Commencement  et  Fin  de  la  Periode  Glacieuse," 

L'Anth.,  XXIV,  1913,  353. 

228.  Wilke,  G.     "Kulturbeziekungen  zwiscken  Indien,  Orient 

und  Europa,"  Mannusbibliothek,  X,  1913. 

229.  Sckmidt,  H.     "Troja,  Mykene,  Ungarn,"   Zts.  f.  Eth., 

XXXVI,  1904,  608,  645. 

230.  Antkes,   E.     "Alte   und   neue   steinzeitlicke   Funde   aus 

Hessen,"  Prahist.  Zeits.,  II,  1910,  60. 

CHAPTER  IX— NEOLITHIC  PEOPLES  AND  THEIR 
MIGRATIONS 

ATLASES 

240.  Bartkolemew,   J.    G.     Advanced   Atlas   of  Physical   and 

Political  Geography.     London,  1917. 

241.     International  Student's  Atlas.     London,  ? 

242.  See  40,  489;  457  and  278,  261,  300,  500;   B,  I,  241,  268- 

360;  Bib.  E,  256;  J,  57;  M,  ckaps.  X-XIV,  211; 
Bib.  49,  435. 

243.  Breuil,  L'Abbe,  H.     "Les  Subdivisions  du  Paleolitkique 

superieur  et  leur  Signification,"  Cong.  Int.  d'Anth.  et 
d'Arch.     Session  XIV,  Geneve,  1912,  165. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  303 

244.  Sergi,  G.     The  Mediterranean  Race,  London,  1901,  chaps. 

II,  X,  40. 

245.  Myres,  J.  |L.     Essay  II,  51-54,  in  Marvin,  F.  S.     The 

Unity  of  Western  Civilization. 

246.  Ripley,  W.  L.     The  Races  of  Europe.    New  York,  1899. 

247.  Deniker,  J.     " Les  Races  Europeennes,"  Journ.  Anth.  Inst., 

XXIV. 

"Les  six  Races  composant  la  Population  de  1'Eu- 

rope,"  ibid. 

250.  Schliz,   A.     "  Vorgesckichtliche   Schadeltypen   deutschen 

Lander,"  Arch.  f.  Anth.,  XXXVI  (N.  F.  IX),  1910, 
239.     Cf.  B,  II,  101. 

251.     "Beitrage  zur  prakistoriscken  Ethnologie,"   Pra- 

hist.  Zeits.,  IV,  1912,  36. 

252.     "Bedeutung     der     somatiscken     Antkropologie," 

Korr.-bl.  d.  d.  Ges.,  XL,  1909,  66. 

253.     "Vorstufen    der    Nordisck-europaiscken    Sckadel- 

bildung,"  Arch.  f.  Anth.,  XLI,  1914,  169. 

254.     "Der  scknurkeramiscke  Kulturkreis,"  Zts.  f.  Eth., 

XXXVIII,  1906,  312. 

260.  Recke,  O.     "Zur  Antkropologie  der  jiingeren  Steinzeit  in 

Scklesien  und  Boknien,"  Arch.  f.  Anth.,  1908. 

261.  See  351. 

262.  Klassen,  K.     Die  V biker,  Europas  zur  jiingeren  Steinzeit. 

Stuttgart,  1912,  Bib. 

263.  Fleure,   H.   J.     Human   Geography    in    Western   Europe. 

London,  1918. 

264.  Montelius,  O.     "Die  Einwanderung  unserer  Vorfakrer  irn 

Norden,"  Arch.f.  Anth.,  XVII,  151. 

265.     "Sur  les  Tombeaux  et  la  Topographie  de  la  Suede 

pendant  1'age  de  pierre,"  Cong.  Int.  &  Anth.  et  d 'Arch., 
Session  VII,  Stockkolm,  I,  74. 

266.  Virckow,  R.     "Altnordiscke   Schadel   zu   Kopenkagen," 

Arch.  f.  Anth.,  1870. 

"Die  altesten  Einwokner  von  Nordeuropa,"  Arch. 

f.  Anth.,  XXV,  1898,  88. 

267.  Arbo,  C.  O.  E.     "  Antkropo-etknologie  des  Siidwestnor- 

wegens,"  Arch.f.  Anth.,  XXXI,  1905,  313. 


304  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

268.  Herve,  G.     "  L'Ethnographie  des  populations  franchises," 

R.  E.  A.,  VI,  1896,  97. 

269.     "Les  brachycephales  neolithiques,"  Rev.  Ec.  An., 

IV,  1894,  393;  V,  1895,  18. 

270.  Hamy,    E.     T.     "L' Anthropologic    de    Nord-France," 

L'Anth.,  XIX,  1908,  46. 

271.  Bloch,   A.     "Origines   des   brachycephales   en   France," 

L'Anth.,  XII,  1901,  541. 

272.  Luschan,  F.  von.     "Beziehung  zwischen  der  Alpinen  Be- 

volkerung  und  den  Vorderasiaten,"   Korr.-bl.  d.  d. 
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272a.  A,  482;  B,  298-303;  246. 

273.  Studer,  T.  H.,  und  Bannwarth,  E.     Crania  Helvetica  an- 

tiqua.     Leipsic,  1894.     Reviewed  R.  E.  A.,  IV,  1894, 
410. 

274.  Herve,  G.     "Les  populations  lacustres,"  R.  E.  A.,  V, 

1895,  137. 

FOR   EFFECTS   OF   GEOGRAPHIC    ENVIRONMENT 

275.  Ratzel.     Anthropogcographie.     3te  Auf.     Stuttgart,  1909. 

276.  Seraple,  E.    Influences  of  Geographical  Environment.    New 

York. 

277.  Demolins,  E.     Les  Francais  d'Aujourd'hui.     Paris,  1898. 

278.     Les  grandes  Routes  des  Peuples.     Paris,  1901. 


CHAPTER  X— NEOLITHIC  RELIGION 

290.  Huxley,   T.   H.     Science  and  Education,   Essays.     New 

York,  1897,  p.  85. 

291.     Method  and  Results,   Essays.     New  York,   1901. 

Essay  I,  p.  18. 

292.  Goethe,  J.  W.     Gedichte,  Das  Gottlichr. 

293.  Harrison,  J.  E.     Ancient  Art  and  Ritual.     New  York, 

1913. 

294.  Smith,  W.  R.     Religion  of  the  Semites.     Edinburgh,  1889. 
Origin  of  Religion.     See  O,  75. 

295.  Durkeim,   E.     Elementary  Forms  of  the  Religious  Life. 

Trans.  J.  W.  Swain,  London,  Bib. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  305 

296.  Tylor,  E.    B.     Primitive  Culture.     4th  ed.     New  York, 

1903. 

297.     Anthropology.     New  York,  1916. 

298.  Frazer,  J.  G.     The  Golden  Bough.     3d  ed.     London,  1914, 

Bib.  ' 

299.  Midler,   F.   M.     Origin   and   Growth  of  Religion.     New 

York,  1879. 

300.  Bagehot,  W.     Physics  and  Politics.     New  York  and  Lon- 

don. 

301.  Montgomery,  J.  E.  (Editor).     Religions  of  the  Past  and 

Present.     Philadelphia,  1918.     Bib. 

302.  Lang,  A.     Myth,  Ritual  and  Religion.     London,  1901. 

307.  Murray,  G.     Four  Stages  of  Greek  Religion.     New  York, 

1912. 

308.  Harrison,  J.  E.     Themis.     Cambridge,  1912. 

309.     Prolegomena  to  Greek  Religion.     Cambridge,  1903. 

CULT   OF   GODDESS   AND   MOTHER-RIGHT 

O,  Index  "Maternal  descent";   B,  II,  584. 

315.  Farnell,  L.  R.     Greece  and  Babylon.     Edinburgh,  1911, 

chap.  V. 

316.  Dietrich,  R.     Muttererde.     Berlin,  1905. 

317.  Frazer,  J.  G.     Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,  Studies  in  History 

of    Oriental    Religion.     London,    1906.     See    Index, 
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318.  Hartley,  C.  G.  (Mrs.  W.  M.  Gallichan).     The  Position  of 

Woman  in  Primitive  Society.     London,  1914. 

319.  Bennett,  F.  M.     "Religious  Cults  Associated  with  Ama- 

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320.  Reinach,    S.     "La    Station    neolithique,"    Le    Jablanica 

VAnth.,  1901,  333. 

321.  Smith,  W.  R.     Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia. 

Cambridge,  1885. 

322.  Mannhard,  W.     Wald-  und  Feld-kulte.     2d  ed.    Berlin, 

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323.  Helms,   K.     Altgermanische   Religionsgeschichte.     Heidel- 

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325.     Ellis,  H.     Man  and  Woman.     London,   1894.     Cf.  4th 
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306  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CHAPTER  XI— PROGRESS 

335.     Marvin,  F.   S.,  Editor.     Unity  of  Western   Civilization. 
London,  1915. 

336. Progress  and  History.     London,  1916. 

337. The  Living  Past.     2d  ed.     Oxford,  1915. 

338.     Murray,  G.     Religio  Grammatici.     Boston,  1918. 

CHAPTER  XII— THE  COMING  OF  THE  INDO- 
EUROPEANS 

340.  Miiller,  F.   Max.     Biographies  of  Words  and  Home  of 

Aryans.     London,  1888. 

341.  Meillet,  A.     Les  Langues  dans  V Europe  nouvelle.     Paris, 

1918. 

342.     Les  Dialectes  Indo-europeens.     Paris,  1908. 

343.     Introduction  a  V Etude  comparative  des  Langues  Indo- 

europiennes.     4th  ed.     Paris,  1915. 

346.  Meyer,    E.     Geschichte   des   Alterthums.     2d   ed.     Stutt- 

gart, 1909.     Vol.  I,  Pt.  2,  p.  722. 

347.  Schrader,    O.    Reallexikon    der    indogermanischen    Alter- 

thumslcunde.     Strassburg,  1902. 

348.     Sprachvergleichung  und  Ur -geschichte.    3d  ed.    Jena, 

1906. 

349.     Die  Indogermanen.     Leipsic,  1911,  165  pp. 

(Trans.  Jevons,  F.  B.)     Prehistoric  Antiquities  of 

the  Aryan  Peoples.     London,  1890. 

350.  Feist,  S.     Kultur.     Ausbreitung  und  Herkunft  der  Indo- 

germanen.    Berlin,  1913. 

351.     Europa  im  Lichte  der  V or  geschichte.     Berlin,  1910. 

352.  Hirt,  H.    Die  Indogermanen.    2  vols.    Strassburg,  1905-07. 

353.  Kossina,  G.     "Die  indogermanische  Frage  archaologisch 

beantwortet,"  Zts.f.  Eth.,  XXXIV  (1902),  161,  N.  B. 
Cf.  220. 

354.  Much,  M.    Heimat  der  Indogermanen.     2d  ed.     Berlin, 

1904. 

355.  Reinach,  S.     Origine  des  Aryem.     Paris,  1892. 

356.  Wilser,  L.     Die  Germanen.     Leipsic,  1903. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  307 

357.     Herkunft  und  Urgeschichte  der  Arier.     Heidelberg, 

1899. 

358.  Zaborowski,    Moindron    S.     "La    Patrie    originaire    des 

Aryens,"  R.  E.  A.     Paris,  XIII  (1903),  253. 

359.     Les  Pewples  aryens  d'Asie  et  d' Europe.     Paris,  1908. 

360.  Brunnhofer,  G.  H.     Arische  Urzeit.     Bern,  1909. 

361.  Lapouge,  G.  V.  de.     L'Aryen,  Son  Role  social.     Paris, 

1899. 

362.  Hehn,  V.     Kulturpflanzen  und  Ilausthiere.     5th  ed.     Ber- 

lin, 1887. 

363.  Holmes,  T.  R.     Ancient  Britain.     Oxford,  1907.     Chap. 

Ill  and  pp.  424-455. 

364.  Veblen,  T.     Imperial  Germany  and  the  Industrial  Revolu- 

tion.    New  York,  1915. 

365.  Huntington,  E.     The  Pulse  of  Asia.     Boston,  1911. 

366.     Palestine  and  Its  Transformations.     Boston,  1907. 

367.     World  Poiver  and  Evolution.     New  Haven,  1919. 

375.  Murray,  G.     Euripides  and  His  Age.     New  York,  1913. 

376.  Chesterton,  G.  K.     Charles  Dickens.     London,  1917. 

377.  Lang,  A.     Custom  and  Myth.     New  York,  1885. 

378.  Gummere,  F.  B.     The  Beginnings  of  Poetry.     New  York, 

1901. 


INDEX 


Achaeans,  253,  281. 
Adaptation,  extreme,  228. 
Agriculture,    origin   of,    101,    108; 

and  religion,  218. 
Amber,  148. 
Anau,  93,  100,  125. 
Ancylus  Epoch,  37,  164,  169. 
Apes,  4,  12. 
Arboreal  life,  7,  13. 
Aryans,  246. 
Asia,  10,  91. 
Axe,  43,  136,  173. 
Azilian-Tardenoisian,  39,  48,  193. 

Babylonia,  92. 

Balder,  myth  of,  222. 

Balkans,  61,  100,  267. 

Baltic  culture,  131,  144,  203,  232, 

271. 
Baltic  Sea,  changes  of,  36,  41,  161. 
Barley,  80,  94. 
Boats,  145. 
Brachycephals,   44,  51,   181,   195, 

262;  in  lake-dwellings,  87. 
Bread,  82. 

Bronze,  141;  age  of,  166. 
Burial  of  dead,  31,  123. 

Campigny,  50. 

Cattle,  domestic,  76,  91,  110. 

Cave  frescoes,  31 ;  remains,  53. 

Celts,  128,  263. 

Chronology,  37,  94,  101,  160,  166, 

192,  253. 
Climatic  changes,  4,  26,  32,  10-2. 
Copper,  140;  age  of ,  166. 
Crescents  of  clay,  84. 
Crete,  144,  ISO." 
Cro-Magnon  race,  -2!>,  181,  231. 


Daemons,  213,  276. 

Danube,  200. 

Dead,  disposal  of,  31,  123,  127. 

Dog,  42,  75. 

Dolichocephals,  44,  87,  198. 

Dolmens,  114. 

Domestic  animals,  91,  110,  112. 

Dormant  periods  and  nations,  243. 

Dress,  132. 

Education,  Neolithic,  237,  275. 

Family,  Aryan,  251. 

Flax,  83. 

Flint,  86,  134,  138. 

Folk-lore  and  fairy-tales,  277. 

Forests,  32,  64;    succession  of,  in 

Denmark,  38. 
Fortihcations,  62,  236,  263. 

Glacial  period,  24. 
Goddess,  cult  of,  220. 
Gold,  139. 

Greek  mysteries,  212. 
Grosgartach,  59,  157,  234. 

Hamites,  19,  22,  182. 
Heidelberg  man,  28. 
Hoe-cidture,  104. 
Horse,  74. 
Houses  and  huts,  55,  72. 

Incineration,  127. 
Indo-Europeans,   247;    homeland, 

259;     language,    246;     religion, 

251,  268. 
Industries,  131. 
Iranian  plateau,  12. 


309 


310 


INDEX 


Lake-dwellings,  69,  202. 
Littorina  Epoch,  37,  165. 
Loess,  27,  65. 

Magelmose,  45,  172. 

Mattock,  137. 

Mediterranean  race,  182,  187,  194; 

culture,  231. 
Megaliths,  114. 
Menhirs,  122. 
Microliths,  49. 
Migrations,   Indo-European,   253; 

routes,  18,  20,  52,  183. 
Millet,  80. 
Mother-right,  223. 
Mugem,  44. 

Neanderthal  race,  29. 

Neolithic  cidture,  persistence    of, 

272,  280. 
Nephrite  and  Jadeite,  146. 

Oaks  in  Denmark,  37,  171. 
Oats,  81. 

Paleolithic  Age,  Lower,  29;  Upper, 

32. 
Peace,  85,  235. 
Pelasgi,  257. 
Piedmont  zones,  105. 
Pig,  77. 

Piltdown  skull,  29. 
Pines  in  Denmark,  37,  171. 
Pioneer  life,  191,  204,  237. 
Pithecanthropus,  15. 
Plough,  108. 

Pottery,  43,  88,  100,  153,  201. 
Primates,  6,  20. 
Progress,  228. 


Races,  human,  19;  Paleolithic 
180;  Neolithic,  193. 

Religion,  Paleolithic,  208;  Neo- 
lithic, 206,  276;  of  lake-dwell- 
ings, 84;  of  Indo-Europeans,  268, 
276. 

Rinnekalns,  47. 

Ritual,  210. 

River-valleys  as  trade-routes,  143, 
190. 

Roman  law,  258. 

Sahara,  once  well-watered,  22. 

Salt,  139. 

" Schuhleisienbeil"  (mattock),  137. 

Semites,  19,  22,  106. 

Sheep,  78,  91. 

Shell-heaps,  40,  172,  197. 

Siwalik  strata,  14. 

Social  development,  85. 

Steppe,  27,  32,  65,  189. 

Stutzheim,  57,  59. 

Susa,  99. 

Taboo,  211. 
Tertiary  period,  9. 
Trade,  144;   routes,  152. 
Tribal  education,  275. 
Tridachna  shells  in  Europe,  147. 
Tumuli,  116. 
Tundra,  26,  36. 

Weaving,  83. 
Wheat,  80,  94. 

Women,  position  in  Neolithic  time, 
224,  249. 

Yoldia  Epoch,  37,  102. 


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